Senior SEO Analyst

About VML

VML is a leading creative company that combines brand experience, customer experience, and commerce, creating connected brands to drive growth. VML is celebrated for its innovative and human first, award-winning work for blue chip client partners including AstraZeneca, Colgate-Palmolive, Dell, Ford, Microsoft, Nestlé, The Coca-Cola Company, and Wendy's. The agency is recognized by the Forrester Wave™ Reports, as a Leader among Marketing Creative and Content Service Providers, Commerce Services, Global Digital Experience Services, Global Marketing Services and, most recently, Marketing Measurement & Optimization. In addition, VML’s specialist health network, VML Health, is one of the world’s largest and most awarded health agencies. VML’s global network is powered by 26,000 talented people across 55+ markets, with principal offices in Kansas City, New York, Detroit, London, São Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore, and Sydney.

VML is a WPP agency (NYSE: WPP). For more information, please visit  www.vml.com, and follow along on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.

Senior SEO/AEO Specialist

Core Responsibilities
Responsible for driving organic visibility and discoverability across both traditional search engines and AI-powered answer engines through comprehensive SEO and AEO strategy, execution, and ongoing optimization. Key responsibilities include conducting detailed SEO and AEO audits, leading keyword and question research, developing strategic recommendations for both search and AI contexts, overseeing implementation across platforms, and providing continuous optimization to maintain visibility in an evolving search landscape that includes Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and other emerging answer engines.

Strategic SEO & AEO Leadership

• Holistic Search Understanding: Deep expertise across technical SEO, on-page optimization, content strategy, off-page factors (link building, local SEO), plus emerging AEO disciplines including structured data optimization, entity recognition, and AI content formatting.

• Dual-Platform Strategy: Ability to develop integrated strategies that optimize for both traditional search engines and AI answer engines, understanding the distinct ranking and selection criteria for each while identifying synergies.

• Strategic Planning: Translates business goals into actionable SEO/AEO strategies, roadmaps, and prioritized recommendations with clear KPIs that measure performance across both search results and AI citations.

• Comprehensive Auditing: Proficiency in conducting audits covering traditional SEO factors plus AEO-specific elements including structured data coverage, answer potential, citation-worthiness, entity optimization, and conversational content quality.

Technical SEO & AEO Implementation

• Crawlability & Indexability: Expert knowledge of sitemaps, robots.txt, canonicalization, redirects, and technical elements affecting both search engine crawlers and AI content ingestion systems.

• Structured Data Mastery: Advanced implementation of Schema.org markup, JSON-LD, and entity-based structured data to enhance both search features and AI comprehension. Expert in FAQ, How-To, Article, Product, and other schemas that support answer extraction.

• Site Architecture & Performance: Competence in optimizing site structure, internal linking, and Core Web Vitals for improved user experience, search ranking, and AI content discovery.

• AI-Readable Content Structure: Expertise in formatting content for AI extraction including clear headings hierarchy, concise definitive answers, table-based data presentation, and logical content flow that facilitates accurate citation.

Content Strategy & Optimization

• Advanced Keyword & Question Research: Mastery of identifying high-value keywords plus natural language questions and conversational queries that trigger AI answer engines. Understanding of user intent across both search and AI contexts.

• Answer-Focused Optimization: Expertise in creating and optimizing content that directly answers user questions with authoritative, citation-worthy responses formatted for AI extraction while maintaining SEO best practices.

• Content Gap Analysis: Identifies content opportunities across both traditional search queries and AI-driven questions, developing strategies for new content creation or existing content enhancement that serves both channels.

• Entity & Knowledge Graph Optimization: Understanding of entity-based SEO and how to establish topical authority and entity relationships that improve visibility in both knowledge panels and AI responses.

Analytics & Performance

• Tool Proficiency: Expert-level use of traditional SEO tools (Google Search Console, Google Analytics, SEMrush, Ahrefs, Screaming Frog) plus AEO monitoring tools (AI answer engine tracking platforms, citation monitoring tools, structured data validators).

• Multi-Channel Monitoring: Skill in tracking, analyzing, and reporting on metrics across traditional search (rankings, traffic, conversions) and answer engines (citation frequency, AI visibility, answer attribution).

• Citation & Source Analysis: Ability to analyze when and how content appears in AI-generated responses, understanding citation patterns and optimizing for increased answer engine visibility.

• Problem Solving: Strong diagnostic skills to identify root causes of performance fluctuations across both search and AI platforms, proposing effective solutions based on platform-specific signals.

Communication & Collaboration

• Clear Communication: Ability to articulate complex SEO and AEO concepts to diverse audiences including technical teams, content creators, non-technical stakeholders, and leadership.

• Cross-functional Partnership: Proven ability to collaborate effectively with content creators, developers, product teams, data teams, and other marketing channels to achieve unified organic visibility goals.

• Stakeholder Education: Capability to educate teams on the importance of AEO, the differences between SEO and AEO, and how to create content that performs across both traditional search and AI answer contexts.

Continuous Learning & Adaptation
Industry Awareness: Stays current with SEO trends, algorithm updates, and best practices while actively monitoring the rapidly evolving AEO landscape including new AI answer engines, citation patterns, and optimization opportunities.

• AI Platform Monitoring: Regularly tests and analyzes how content performs across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Bing Chat, and other emerging answer engines.

• Experimentation Mindset: Willingness to test new approaches, formats, and optimization techniques for emerging AI platforms while maintaining core SEO fundamentals.

Requirements
Essential:

• 5+ years SEO experience with proven track record of organic growth

• Expert knowledge of technical SEO, content optimization, and link building

• Advanced structured data and schema markup implementation

• Understanding of how AI systems consume and cite web content

• Experience with major SEO tools and analytics platforms

• Strong analytical and data interpretation skills

Highly Valued:

• Demonstrated AEO optimization experience and results

• Experience optimizing for AI answer engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Google AI Overviews)

• Knowledge of entity-based SEO and knowledge graph optimization

• Experience with citation tracking and AI visibility monitoring

• Understanding of natural language processing and semantic search

• Background in information architecture and content structure

We believe the best work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That's why we’ve adopted a hybrid approach, with teams in the office an average of four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process.

WPP (VML) is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers.

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