Off-Page SEO Manager

Black & White Zebra; United States; Hybrid; USD 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary bonus

Comprehensive benefits

Job summary

Black and White Zebra (BWZ) is seeking an Off-Page SEO Manager to build our link-acquisition engine from the ground up. You will own vendor relationships, scale outreach, and collaborate with our Content team to turn assets into linkable opportunities, delivering measurable results month over month.

You’ll thrive in ambiguity, test ideas, and create repeatable processes for high-quality links across diverse channels, with a focus on long-term growth and channel diversification.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of hands-on experience in link building, link acquisition, or a closely related SEO discipline.
• Strong relationship-building instincts — comfortable initiating and nurturing recurring partnerships with external stakeholders over time.
• Working understanding of what makes a link valuable (relevance, authority, placement) versus low-quality or risky.
• Comfort with outreach and SEO research tooling (e.g., Pitchbox, Ahrefs/SEMrush, email outreach platforms).
• A self-directed, experimental approach — able to propose an idea, test it, and iterate without heavy oversight.
• Strong organization and reporting instincts — you naturally track what's working, what isn't, and why.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end vendor relationship lifecycle, including sourcing, negotiation, quality review, performance tracking, and ongoing optimization
• Build and scale BWZ's earned and owned link acquisition capabilities — including reclamation, partner and reciprocal link-swap relationships, and outreach tied to linkable assets
• Partner with our Content team to turn calculators, templates, and resource pages into outreach-ready linkable assets — owning the recipient lists, outreach, embed tracking, and reporting for each campaign
• Evaluate external link partnership platforms and provide recommendations on long-term partnership strategy
• Track and report clear numbers monthly: total links acquired, cost per link, and the shifting split between sources
• Grow the contribution of earned and owned acquisition channels over time

Skills

Link building

Relationship-building

Link quality understanding

Outreach tooling

Experimentation

Reporting

Tools

Pitchbox

Ahrefs

SEMrush

Email outreach platforms

Job description

About the Role:

BWZ is looking for an Off-Page SEO Manager to build our link-acquisition engine from the ground up. We're investing in a more diversified, sustainable authority acquisition strategy. You'll manage existing vendor relationships while building and scaling off-page link acquisition initiatives. Reporting to our Senior SEO Manager, you'll partner closely with our Content team to turn our tools and resources into genuine linkable assets.

Who you are:

You're a self-starter who's comfortable operating with more ambiguity than structure — you'll need to generate ideas, test them, and figure out what works with limited playbook to lean on. You understand what separates a good link from a bad one, and you're not precious about starting with unglamorous, manual work (vendor management, reclamation, cold outreach) while building toward something more systematic. You think in terms of repeatable processes, not one-off wins — you're the kind of person who turns "we got a link" into "here's how we get links like this every month."

What you'll be doing (responsibilities):

• Own the end-to-end vendor relationship lifecycle, including sourcing, negotiation, quality review, performance tracking, and ongoing optimization
• Build and scale BWZ's earned and owned link acquisition capabilities — including reclamation, partner and reciprocal link-swap relationships, and outreach tied to linkable assets
• Partner with our Content team to turn calculators, templates, and resource pages into outreach-ready linkable assets — owning the recipient lists, outreach, embed tracking, and reporting for each campaign
• Evaluate external link partnership platforms and provide recommendations on long-term partnership strategy
• Track and report clear numbers monthly: total links acquired, cost per link, and the shifting split between sources
• Grow the contribution of earned and owned acquisition channels over time

How your success will be measured:

• New Quality Links Acquired: Total new links per month meeting our quality bar across all channels — reclamation, partner swaps, data outreach, and linkable-asset/badge campaigns
• Channel scale & diversity — Growth in the number of durable, repeatable acquisition channels producing quality links, so authority comes from a resilient mix of sources rather than any single dependency
• Acquisition efficiency — Blended cost and effort per quality link trending down over time as owned and earned channels scale and mature.

Your skillset includes:

• 3+ years of hands-on experience in link building, link acquisition, or a closely related SEO discipline
• Strong relationship-building instincts — comfortable initiating and nurturing recurring partnerships with external stakeholders (editors, SEO managers, site owners, agencies) over time, not just one-off transactional outreach
• Working understanding of what makes a link valuable (relevance, authority, placement) versus low-quality or risky
• Comfort with outreach and SEO research tooling (e.g., Pitchbox, Ahrefs/SEMrush, email outreach platforms)
• A self-directed, experimental approach — able to propose an idea, test it, and iterate without heavy oversight
• Strong organization and reporting instincts — you naturally track what's working, what isn't, and why

Nice to haves:

• Experience specifically with vendor/paid-link program management
• Familiarity with link-swap or marketplace platforms
• Experience building or promoting "linkable assets" (calculators, tools, badge/award campaigns) as a growth channel
• Background in B2B media, SaaS, or content-driven organizations

Salary Statement

This full-time position is available as either a remote or hybrid position (depending on location), with an annual salary in the range of $80,000 to $100,000 CAD. The range is a guide for the expected skills, knowledge, and experience for new hires based in Canada only. Seniority level and salary ranges are determined through interviews and a review of education, experience, knowledge, skills, abilities of the applicant, equity with other team members, and alignment with market data. This means ranges will vary for candidates based outside of Canada and/or at different seniority levels. In addition to annual salary, full-time employees are also eligible for a discretionary bonus and a comprehensive benefits package.

About Us

We’re a rapidly growing, independent media tech company headquartered in Vancouver, B.C. Canada. Since 2012, our portfolio of influential digital publications has been helping millions of people succeed at work.

Our brands cover thought leadership for executives in project management, people management, product management, tech, marketing and many others - with the goal of connecting people with knowledge, skills and tools they need to succeed professionally in the age of AI.

We got our start in 2011 as The Digital Project Manager blog, founded by our CEO Ben Aston. Since then, we’ve grown into an international team of 70+ creators, strategists, and innovators with a portfolio of more than 15 online publications. We enjoy an impact-driven environment that combines the agility of a startup with the creativity of an agency and the diversity of a global company.

We’ve previously ranked #30 in The Globe and Mail’s Fastest Growing Company list as well as Deloitte's Fast 50 program, received a CMI award for Best Digital Publication for The Digital Project Manager—and we’re listed in both Canada's Top Small & Medium Employers, and Best Employers in BC!

All of this growth is driven by our commitment to our mission: In a world of evolving skills, practices, and technology, we’re creating a playbook for the future of work and empowering communities to create it with us.

Want to learn more? Watch this video to learn why the team love working at BWZ!

Diversity Equity and Inclusion

Black and White Zebra is an equal opportunity employer and considers all candidates for employment regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship, age, disability, marital status, military or veteran’s status (including protected veterans, as may be required by federal law), sexual orientation or any other category protected by law. We celebrate all backgrounds and attributes that continue to help make our team impactful, iterative, adaptable, and fun!