SEO and AI Search Specialist

Aquent; Chicago (IL); Remote; USD 83,000 - 124,000; Part time

Job summary

Aquent is seeking an SEO and AI Search Specialist for a 4-week project engaging 20 hours per week. This fully remote role supports a National Marketing team, overlapping US Eastern business hours. You will drive SEO and AI search strategy, test approaches, and personally execute improvements.

You will partner with the Senior Manager, Digital Marketing and AI Enablement to shape the search roadmap, translate recommendations, and ensure alignment with editorial standards and conversion goals.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of hands-on organic search experience.
• Experience optimizing commercial, conversion-focused pages (service/product/solution).
• Ability to explain changes, rationale, and impact.
• Experience developing SEO-focused content briefs for writers.
• Ability to make content extractable for AI answer engines without hurting conversion.

Responsibilities

• SEO & AEO Strategy: identify priorities and opportunities for organic and AI search programs.
• AI Search & Industry Research: stay current and test emerging AEO practices.
• On-Page SEO & AEO: optimize bottom-of-funnel pages, headings, schema, and internal links.
• SEO & AEO Content Briefs: develop detailed briefs for top and mid funnel content.
• Technical SEO & Measurement: crawl/index analysis, schema, and data reconciliation across tools.
• Process & Workflow: document workflows, prompts, templates, and track tasks in Asana.

Skills

SEO & Content Experience

AI & AEO Experience

Technical SEO

Communication & Collaboration

Tools

Semrush

GA4

Google Search Console

Looker Studio

Asana

CMS

Job description

A National Marketing team is seeking an SEO and AI Search Specialist to provide hands-on expertise across organic search, Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), and emerging AI search platforms.

This role combines strategy, research, execution, and content development. The ideal candidate can recommend where the program should go next, stay current on the rapidly evolving AI search landscape, test new approaches, and personally execute SEO/AEO improvements.

You will partner closely with the Senior Manager, Digital Marketing and AI Enablement to develop recommendations and determine priorities for the search roadmap. The strategy is owned internally, so this person should bring a strong point of view while remaining collaborative and open to evidence.

Engagement Details

• Initial Term: 4-week project engagement
• Hours: Approximately 20 hours per week
• Potential Extension: Longer-term contract engagement and potential full-time conversion based on the work
• Location: Fully remote with U.S. Eastern business-hours overlap
• Reports To: Senior Manager, Digital Marketing and AI Enablement
• Tools: Semrush, GA4, Google Search Console, Looker Studio, CMS, and Asana

Key Responsibilities

• SEO & AEO Strategy
  • Recommend priorities and opportunities for the organic search and AI search programs.
  • Present recommendations with clear reasoning, trade-offs, and supporting evidence.
  • Identify areas where the organization may be falling behind industry developments or emerging search practices.
  • Prioritize initiatives based on expected impact and clearly communicate areas of uncertainty.
  • Partner with the Senior Manager to translate recommendations into the search roadmap.
• AI Search & Industry Research
  • Stay current on AI search through industry research, primary documentation, platform updates, release notes, and credible practitioner research.
  • Evaluate emerging AEO practices through hands-on testing and experimentation.
  • Document test results, including inconclusive findings, and translate successful approaches into repeatable processes.
  • Monitor AI visibility across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot.
  • Measure citation presence and AI visibility in addition to traditional organic rankings.
• On-Page SEO & AEO
  • Own optimization of bottom-of-funnel service, industry, and solution pages.
  • Optimize title and heading structures, entities, subtopics, internal linking, schema, and extractable answer content.
  • Write replacement copy when page content needs to be improved rather than simply providing recommendations.
  • Develop a repeatable scoring methodology for evaluating pages based on SEO, AEO, extractability, and conversion.
  • Balance AI/search optimization with the site's sales and conversion objectives.
  • Provide implementation-ready recommendations to the web team.
• SEO & AEO Content Briefs
  • Develop detailed brief for middle-and-top-of-funnel content.
  • Define target queries, search intent, entities, subtopics, heading structure, questions to answer, sources/citations, internal links, and conversion paths.
  • Ensure briefs align with existing editorial standards and writer workflows.
  • Coach writers and subject matter experts on SEO/AEO best practices.
  • Maintain templates and standards to ensure consistency as content volume grows.
• Technical SEO & Measurement
  • Conduct crawl and index analysis, including crawl budget, indexation, duplicate and thin content, orphaned pages, redirect chains, canonicals, and status codes.
  • Monitor AI crawler access and identify rendering or site-structure issues affecting indexing and AI citations.
  • Develop and maintain schema, structured data, entity, and internal-linking standards.
  • Support URL taxonomy migrations, including redirect mapping, equity preservation, and post-launch troubleshooting.
  • Reconcile data across Semrush, GA4, Google Search Console, and Looker Studio and determine which metrics should be used for reporting.
  • Separate AI-referred traffic from traditional organic traffic and connect both to pipeline performance.
• Process & Workflow
  • Document SEO/AEO processes and identify opportunities to improve or automate workflows using AI.
  • Develop prompts, templates, and workflows that can be adopted by the broader team.
  • Maintain task status in Asana and follow established brand and content standards.

What We’re Looking For

• SEO & Content Experience
  • 4+ years of hands-on organic search experience.
  • Demonstrated experience optimizing commercial, conversion-focused pages such as service, product, or solution pages.
  • Ability to explain what was changed, why it was changed, and the resulting impact.
  • Experience developing SEO-focused content briefs that writers can execute from.
  • Strong understanding of how to make content extractable for AI answer engines without compromising conversion or persuasive messaging.
  • Strong content judgment and ability to provide specific, actionable recommendations to writers.
• AI & AEO Experience
  • Hands-on experience using AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Claude for research, analysis, page scoring, content briefs, and drafting.
  • Ability to evaluate AI-generated output critically and determine when it is reliable versus when additional validation is required.
  • Experience identifying opportunities to use AI to improve or streamline SEO processes.
  • Ability to develop and document AI-supported workflows that others can use.
• Technical SEO
  • Hands-on experience conducting website crawls and analyzing indexation issues.
  • Experience with structured data, schema, entities, and internal linking at scale.
  • Working knowledge of JavaScript rendering, website architecture, and AI crawler access.
  • Experience supporting at least one significant website migration or information architecture restructure.
  • Working proficiency with Semrush, GA4, Google Search Console, and Looker Studio.
• Communication & Collaboration
  • Strong analytical and strategic thinking with the ability to clearly defend recommendations.
  • Comfortable identifying uncertainty and changing direction when evidence supports a different approach.
  • Strong written communication skills, particularly for briefs, documentation, standards, and findings.
  • Highly self-directed and comfortable working independently in a contract environment.

Nice to Have — Not Required

Professional services or B2B consulting experience.Experience developing content strategies across the full marketing funnel.Experience collaborating with an external SEO/AEO agency partner.Log file analysis and Core Web Vitals experience.Public or internal thought leadership, including presentations, writing, experiment documentation, or internal standards.

Team & Collaboration

You will collaborate with:

• Digital Marketing: Web, content execution, analytics, and lead reporting.
• National Content Team: Editorial standards, blog production, and contracted writers.
• Agency Partner: Coordination on overlapping SEO/AEO initiatives and measurement.
• Subject Matter Experts: Partner-level consultants who provide deep expertise across their respective fields.

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