SEO Account Director

Publicis Groupe Holdings B.V; Greater London; On-site; GBP 85,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension

Life Assurance

Private Medical cover

Shared Parental Leave

Reflection Days

Job summary

Starcom, part of Publicis Groupe, is seeking an SEO & GEO Account Director to shape how L’Oréal UK brands are discovered across search, social, retail and AI-powered experiences. You’ll combine deep SEO expertise with fresh thinking to influence strategy and delivery, turning search insight into growth.

Working closely with the Business Director and cross-functional teams in media, content, data and analytics, you’ll lead senior client relationships, develop high-quality programmes, and champion

Qualifications

• Strong SEO strategy experience for complex, multi-brand environments.
• Broad SEO knowledge: content, technical SEO, keywords, IA, performance analysis.
• Experience with clients and senior stakeholders; translate challenges into commercial recommendations.
• Exposure to GEO and AI-powered search; understanding of structured data and AI features.
• Familiarity with GA4, Search Console, and related measurement platforms.
• Excellent communication skills; tell compelling performance stories to varied audiences.
• Experience guiding people/workstreams across search, media, social, data and client teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead organic search strategy across L’Oréal divisions and develop actionable roadmaps.
• Build senior client relationships and guide SEO performance, content, and technical opportunities.
• Shape high-quality SEO programmes including technical SEO, content, demand, and local search.
• Translate search insights into recommendations for content, media, and digital experiences.
• Collaborate with media, paid search, social, retail, data and analytics teams for integrated strategies.
• Lead measurement and storytelling to show growth drivers and prioritise actions.
• Develop SEO talent and explore AI search, structured data, and new search-led opportunities.

Skills

Strong SEO expertise

Broad SEO knowledge

Client & stakeholder experience

GEO & AI-powered search

Analytical skills & tools

Clear communication

Team leadership & guidance

Tools

GA4

Google Search Console

Screaming Frog

Semrush

Ahrefs

Similarweb

Job description

Company description

With a history that dates back over 80 years, Starcom is a global communications planning and media leader. We are an agency still grounded in our founding principle that people are at the centre of all we do. Each day, we apply this belief to harness the transformative power of data and technology to inspire and move people and business forward. With more than 7,000 employees in over 100 offices around the world, we are the flagship Publicis Media agency that uses our ‘Power of One’ business model, with teams that span multiple disciplines across clients such as Aldi, P&G, Primark, Samsung, Stellantis, and Visa.

We place a huge focus on our People, and have driven flagship D&I and L&D programmes within Publicis Media; our goal is to help every individual reach their fullest potential, and we encourage everyone to make “Brave Plays” in how they approach their work and their own career development. As a result, we have an exceptionally energised and committed talent base, all of us proud of our welcoming and supportive culture, as evidenced by our recognition as one of Campaign’s Best Places to Work for five years in a row, Media Week's Agency of the Year 2025 and one of the Sunday Times Best Places to Work 2025.

Overview

SEO & GEO Account Director

We are hiring an SEO & GEO Account Director to shape how some of L’Oréal UK’s most exciting brands are discovered across search, social, retail and emerging AI-powered experiences. Working closely with the Business Director, you’ll combine deep SEO expertise with fresh thinking about how consumers discover, evaluate and choose brands. This is an opportunity to influence both strategy and delivery, turning search insight into meaningful growth while helping define what GEO looks like for major brands. You’ll collaborate with specialists across media, content, social, retail and data to create connected strategies that have a real impact.

Responsibilities

What you'll be doing:

• Lead organic search strategy across L’Oréal divisions, turning brand and business priorities into focused, actionable SEO and GEO roadmaps.
• Build trusted senior client relationships, providing clear guidance across SEO performance, content, technical opportunities, measurement and emerging search behaviours.
• Shape high-quality SEO programmes spanning technical SEO, content optimisation, search demand, site experience, authority, local search and performance.
• Turn search and consumer insights into practical recommendations that inform content, media, retail and wider digital experiences.
• Collaborate with Media Planning, Paid Search, Social, Retail Media, Data and Analytics teams to create integrated strategies that connect organic search with the wider customer journey.
• Lead performance measurement and storytelling, helping clients understand what is driving growth, where opportunities exist and what actions to prioritise next.
• Develop SEO talent while championing experimentation across AI search, social discovery, structured data and new forms of search-led commerce, alongside identifying opportunities to grow client partnerships.

Qualifications

Skills we’re looking for:

• Strong SEO expertise, with experience shaping strategy for complex, large-scale or multi-brand businesses in an agency or in-house environment.
• Broad knowledge of SEO, including content, technical SEO, keyword strategy, information architecture, user experience and performance analysis.
• Experience working with clients and senior stakeholders, with the ability to turn complex search challenges into clear, commercially relevant recommendations.
• Practical exposure to GEO and AI-powered search, which could include AI Overviews, LLM visibility, structured data, entity optimisation, prompt-based insights or conversational discovery, alongside curiosity to keep learning as the field evolves.
• Strong analytical skills and familiarity with relevant search and measurement platforms such as GA4, Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, Semrush, Ahrefs, Similarweb or equivalent tools.
• Clear and engaging communication skills, with the ability to tell compelling performance stories and make technical subjects accessible to different audiences.
• Experience guiding people or workstreams, combined with a collaborative and commercially aware approach to working across search, media, social, retail, PR, data and client teams.

Additional information

Starcom offers a wide range of benefits to support our employees. Full details are shared when you join, but highlights include core benefits such as Pension, Life Assurance, and Private Medical cover, alongside enhanced policies like Reflection Days and Shared Parental Leave. You’ll also have access to a range of additional initiatives, including:

Please check out the Publicis Career Page which showcases our Inclusive Benefits and our EAG’s (Employee Action Groups).

Publicis Groupe works primarily from the office or our clients' office four days per week.

At Starcom, we are proud to be an equal opportunities employer. We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, and do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion or belief, disability, age, citizenship, relationship status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other protected characteristic.

We are committed to providing a fair, accessible, and inclusive recruitment process. If you have any access needs - for example, related to disability, neurodivergence, or a health condition - please let us know. We’ll work with you to ensure the process works for you. Sharing this information will never impact your application.

Guided by our values, we listen with empathy, uplift each other, take responsibility, and embrace change - building a culture where everyone feels seen, respected, and genuinely included.

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