Senior SEO & AI Discovery Strategist

dentsu; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 65,000 - 75,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, vision, and dental insurance

Life insurance

Disability insurance

401k

Flexible paid time off

At least 15 paid holidays per year

Paid sick and safe leave

Paid parental leave

Job summary

Merkle in Chicago seeks a Sr. Strategist, SEO & AI Discovery to lead SEO across a portfolio of client accounts, setting program direction, owning complex audits and recommendations, and translating search performance into business outcomes.

This senior individual contributor will move between technical SEO, content and on-page strategy, AI-driven discovery, performance measurement, and client advisory, mentoring juniors and shaping scalable workflows.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of progressive SEO experience in agency, consultancy, or multi-stakeholder environments.
• Ability to combine data sources and translate findings into business-driven recommendations.
• Hands-on with tools like GSC, GA4, Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, Ahrefs, SEMRush, Data Studio.
• Strong written, verbal, and presentation skills for executives and teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead SEO strategy across assigned accounts and link work to client goals and outcomes.
• Serve as day-to-day search lead, building trusted relationships with client stakeholders.
• Own complex SEO / AI audits and analyses across technical, content, and AI visibility.
• Develop measurement frameworks connecting organic visibility to business results.
• Turn data into decisions using multiple data sources to prioritize actions.
• Lead technical SEO workstreams across crawl, indexation, rendering, and schema.
• Advance content and AI Search visibility with topical authority and on-page optimization.
• Manage end-to-end delivery including scoping, QA, and stakeholder updates.
• Mentor junior consultants and support account growth through pitches and renewals.

Skills

SEO strategy

Audits

AI discovery

Client advisory

Cross-functional leadership

Tools

Google Search Console

GA4

Screaming Frog

Sitebulb

Ahrefs

SEMRush

enterprise crawlers

rank tracking platforms

Data Studio

AI visibility platforms

Job description

Merkle in Chicago seeks a Sr. Strategist, SEO & AI Discovery to lead SEO across a portfolio of client accounts, setting program direction, owning complex audits and recommendations, and translating search performance into business outcomes.

This senior individual contributor will move between technical SEO, content and on-page strategy, AI-driven discovery, performance measurement, and client advisory, mentoring juniors and shaping scalable workflows.