Senior SEO Manager

About IDP

IDP is the global leader in international education services, delivering global success to students, test takers and our partners, through trusted human relationships, digital technology and customer research. An Australian-listed company, we operate in more than 50 countries around the world.

Our team is comprised of over 7,000 people of various nationalities, ages and cultural backgrounds. Proudly customer-first, our expert people are powered by global technology. Together, we offer unmatched services, helping local dreams become realities, all over the world.

Learn more at www.careers.idp.com

Role purpose

The Senior SEO Manager (Domestic) will lead and own organic traffic and revenue growth for our UK portfolio of higher education search websites securing and growing their future as market leaders through a continuous focus on balancing meeting the evolving needs of users with effective SEO and inbound marketing strategies.

You will own the SEO strategy and delivery plans, working effectively across product, marketing, and engineering to secure buy in for your plans and maximizing impact and time to value. Working as part of the senior management team, you will support wider marketing strategy and help to balance SEO considerations with brand, experience and journey optimization. Leading a small team in the UK and Chennai, you will build our SEO capability ensuring that the team remain up to date with industry trends and equipped to mitigate risks and grasp opportunities. You will embrace the opportunities and threats presented by automation, data science and AI to innovate and generate competitive advantage for our business.

This is a hybrid role based out of the IDP Connect London office, reporting to the Head of Acquisition. You’ll manage a small team based in the UK and Chennai, India and will work extensively with our engineering team in Chennai.

Key accountabilities

1. Lead the creation and implementation of our domestic SEO strategy and delivery plans to meet business objectives and grow organic traffic and revenue across our domestic portfolio
2. Work in partnership with the Head of Acquisition and analytics team to develop overall and organic traffic, interaction and revenue forecasts, targets and performance reporting for review and approval by senior leadership
3. Carry out competitor analyses, backlink audits, site speed and detailed technical SEO audits using industry standard tools and use to make evidence-based, prioritized recommendations including impact estimates
4. Perform ongoing keyword discovery, expansion and optimization and grow organic ranking position for priority keyword sets, proactively lead work to traffic SERP declines and implement strategies to mitigate business impact
5. Improve the technical optimization of our websites, collaborating with the engineering and product teams to ensure smooth releases
6. Writing, communicating, and agreeing requirements including clear acceptance criteria and test cases with the engineering team
7. Help the team priorities the most impactful work and secure the buy in of marketing, product, and engineering for timely and successful delivery
8. Working closely with analytics, develop and continuously improve our SEO analytics and reporting tools and ensure that analytics and data are at the heart of the team’s work and culture
9. Facilitate a process that aligns SEO with web experience, enabling the team to quickly identify and address gaps in their ability to meet customer needs and balancing traffic growth with experience and journey optimization
10. Communicate the SEO strategy to your team, the wider marketing team and business unit, providing regular forecasts, delivery progress and impact updates
11. Lead and grow your direct reports through structured development plans and coaching activities to establish a high performing team and to support individual career growth
12. Be a confident champion for SEO within the business, communicating best practice, developments and trends with relevant internal and external stakeholders including UX, product and engineering
13. Keep up-to-date with changes in the industry and wider tech landscape and proactively update the business on opportunities and threats and associated recommendations
14. Other duties as required from time to time by the Head of Acquisition.

Required experience

• A strong track record driving growth in organic traffic and revenue in an ecommerce multi-brand  environment 
• Experience and comfortable leading forecasting and target setting balancing achievability with challenging the team to deliver ambitious growth
• Experienced with delivering SEO practices across content, technical, outreach and data analytics and able to distil the intricacies of SEO into clear priorities and messaging
• Proven SEO experience managing and delivering SEO projects to the highest standards and ambitious outcomes
• Analytical mentality and the ability to determine customer needs and intent through data, skilled in using and building data frameworks using tools such as PowerBi, Looker Studio and AWS Redshift. SQL, VBA or Python is beneficial
• Proven track record solving complex and strategic problems, such as algorithm update impacts, interest shifts, or search demand shifts
• Strong in-depth knowledge of technical SEO including modern front-end technologies and frameworks HTML, JavaScript, Angular/React, CSS, headless CMS technologies, etc.
• Demonstrable experience with industry standard SEO tools (e.g. Google Search Console, SEMRush, Ahrefs, ScreamingFrog, etc.) 
• Excellent influencing and collaboration skills evidence by a track record of driving results through partnership in global matrix organisations
• Exceptional written, visual, and verbal communication skills, with the expertise to translate data into insight seamlessly
• Good time management and project management skills
• Experience of building, managing and developing strong SEO teams
• A high level of SEO knowledge and standard processes and the personal drive to remain at the forefront of evolving SEO strategies
• Ability to think commercially and identify growth opportunities aligned with business goals
• Self-motivated, taking ownership of outcomes and harnessing learnings to improve outcomes and time to value
• Degree and/or equivalent professional experience.

Relationships

External                
• Software vendors
• SEO industry

Internal                
• Domestic product team
• Domestic marketing team
• UX and design team
• Analytics team
• IT and engineering teams
• Client relations, customer success and operations teams
• Senior leadership team