Associate Director, SEO

Publicis Groupe; Kuala Lumpur; Hybrid; MYR 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Birthday leave

World Mental Health Day office closure

Major festive closures

Comprehensive medical coverage

Life and personal accident insurance

Hybrid schedule with Friday disconnect

Office closure last week of December

Phone allowance

Job summary

Publicis Groupe is seeking an Associate Director, SEO to lead technical and strategic organic search across enterprise client environments. This is a hands-on leadership role for a senior practitioner who diagnoses issues, shapes content-led growth, and translates data into implementation-ready actions.

The role advances GEO and AI Search capabilities, focusing on cross-market optimization and collaboration with developers, content teams and clients to drive measurable search outcomes.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of hands-on SEO experience in technical and content SEO.
• Ability to crawl, audit and diagnose complex websites independently.
• Strong knowledge of HTML, JavaScript, CSS and modern web technologies.
• Experience with enterprise/international SEO including multi-market localization.
• Leadership experience mentoring SEO practitioners.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills for diverse stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical SEO audits across enterprise and multi-market sites.
• Diagnose JavaScript rendering issues and frontend impact on crawling/indexing.
• Evaluate Core Web Vitals and page performance to prioritize fixes.
• Define SEO requirements for migrations, redesigns, and site launches.
• Review international SEO implementation including hreflang and localization.
• Audit and advise on structured data and schema implementations.
• Translate technical findings into actionable, developer-ready recommendations.
• QA and sign-off on team deliverables.

Skills

Technical SEO

SEO leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Strategic thinking

Stakeholder communication

Tools

Screaming Frog

Google Search Console

GA4

PageSpeed Insights

Lighthouse

Ahrefs

Semrush

Job description

Overview

The Role

As the Associate Director, SEO, you will lead the technical and strategic development of organic search across complex, multi-market and enterprise client environments. This is a hands-on leadership role for a senior SEO practitioner who can independently diagnose technical issues, shape content-led growth strategies, interpret performance data and translate recommendations into implementation-ready actions.

The role will also help evolve the agency's capabilities in Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) and AI Search. It is not a purely client-servicing or account-management position. The successful candidate is expected to personally perform, review and sign off advanced SEO work.

Responsibilities

Key Responsibilities

Technical SEO

• Lead and personally conduct technical SEO audits across enterprise and multi-market websites, covering crawlability, indexation, robots.txt, XML sitemaps, canonicals, redirects, status codes, duplicate content, crawl efficiency, internal linking and site architecture.
• Diagnose JavaScript and rendering issues, and understand how HTML, CSS, JavaScript frameworks, CMS platforms and frontend implementations influence crawling, indexing and organic performance.
• Evaluate Core Web Vitals, page performance and mobile experience, prioritising issues based on likely search impact, business value and implementation effort.
• Define SEO requirements for website migrations, redesigns, platform changes, URL changes and new site launches, including pre-launch QA and post-launch validation.
• Review international SEO implementation, including hreflang, localisation, language and market targeting, and multi-market site architecture.
• Audit and advise on structured data and schema implementation, then validate technical fixes after deployment.
• Translate technical findings into clear, prioritised and implementation-ready recommendations for developers, product teams, content teams and clients.
• Troubleshoot ranking, indexing and organic traffic declines using crawl data, Google Search Console, analytics and other relevant diagnostic sources, and provide technical QA and sign-off on team deliverables.

Content SEO & Organic Growth

• Develop organic search strategies grounded in search intent, keyword and topic demand, competitive gaps, customer journeys and client business objectives.
• Lead keyword research, content audits, content gap analysis, topic mapping and information architecture recommendations.
• Define and review on-page SEO requirements, including titles, metadata, headings, internal linking, content structure, semantic relevance and structured data.
• Create and review content briefs aligned to search intent, E-E-A-T principles, brand requirements and conversion objectives.
• Identify content cannibalisation, thin or duplicative content, and opportunities to consolidate, refresh, expand or create content.
• Measure content performance and translate findings into clear optimisation priorities and an actionable organic growth roadmap.

Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) & AI Search

• Help develop and operationalise the agency's GEO and AI Search capability, connecting traditional SEO fundamentals with visibility across emerging generative and answer-led search experiences.
• Assess how technical accessibility, structured content, entity and brand signals, content authority and citation-worthiness can influence discoverability across AI-powered search environments.
• Develop or review prompt and topic monitoring frameworks, and interpret AI visibility, citation, mention and source trends alongside traditional SEO metrics.
• Translate GEO findings into practical recommendations for technical SEO, content, digital PR, entity development and broader search strategy, while keeping pace with a rapidly evolving search landscape.

Strategy, & Client Partnership

• Drive SEO strategy and prioritised roadmaps for key clients, linking technical and content initiatives to measurable business and search outcomes.
• Present complex SEO issues and recommendations to senior client stakeholders in clear, commercially relevant language, and confidently defend the rationale behind recommendations.
• Scope SEO engagements and contribute to proposals, estimates, forecasts and new-business opportunities where specialist SEO input is required.
• Lead, mentor and develop SEO team members, setting high technical standards and reviewing work before it reaches clients.
• Collaborate closely with development, UX, content, creative, data, media and strategy teams to ensure SEO is incorporated into relevant digital workstreams from the outset.
• Build and improve SEO standards, playbooks, audit frameworks and ways of working, and actively share knowledge across the wider agency.

Qualifications

Requirements & Experience

• 7+ years of hands-on SEO experience, with significant depth in technical SEO and content SEO. Agency experience is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrable ability to independently crawl, audit and diagnose complex websites.
• Strong working knowledge of HTML, JavaScript and CSS, with a practical understanding of browser rendering, crawling, indexing and modern web technologies.
• Strong hands-on experience with Screaming Frog and Google Search Console, plus working knowledge of GA4, PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse and major SEO platforms such as Ahrefs or Semrush.
• Experience with enterprise or international SEO, including multi-market websites, localisation and hreflang implementation.
• Experience supporting website migrations, redesigns, CMS changes or major technical releases in partnership with development teams.
• Strong content SEO capability, including search intent analysis, keyword and topic research, content auditing, on-page optimisation and content briefing.
• Working knowledge of GEO, AI Search and answer-engine optimisation concepts. Direct experience with AI visibility monitoring or optimisation is advantageous, but not mandatory.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to prioritise issues based on impact rather than simply produce exhaustive audit lists.
• Proven experience leading and developing SEO practitioners, reviewing specialist work and maintaining quality across multiple projects.
• Strong communication and presentation skills, with the ability to make technical recommendations understandable and actionable for both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Additional information

• Generous leave entitlements, including birthday leave, rest day and family care leave.
• Office closure for World Mental Health Day 10th October.
• Additional Company closure for all 4 major festive Celebrations
• Cashless comprehensive medical coverage, including access to a panel clinic, dental and optical care.
• Life and personal accident insurance and group hospitalization and surgery.
• A hybrid working schedule and with Friday disconnects.
• Rest Relax & Recharge - office closure last week of December every year.
• Phone Allowance