SEO Manager [Richmond, VA]

Workshop Digital; Virginia; Hybrid; USD 75,000 - 80,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits (2 medical plans, plus

Dental and vision insurance

Profit sharing

Company-wide meetups in Richmond, VA

Job summary

Workshop Digital is seeking a Hybrid SEO Manager in Richmond, VA to drive organic search strategy and client growth. You will lead client relationships, develop strategies, and integrate AI into workflows while mentoring teammates and supporting sales efforts.

You will troubleshoot issues, train new hires, and deliver insightful reports, contributing to strong client retention and expansion within a collaborative agency environment.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of demonstrated agency experience with mid-to-enterprise-level clients.
• Strong ability to build relationships and manage client expectations.
• Ability to set, project, and hit client KPI goals with minimal supervision.
• Proven capability to present data and insights clearly and actionably.
• Excellent written, verbal, and visual communication skills.
• Proficiency in Excel and Google Sheets; familiarity with Google Workspace.

Responsibilities

• Develop strategies and tactics that support client goals and drive organic marketing performance.
• Build and maintain strong client relationships with day-to-day contacts and senior stakeholders to ensure retention and growth.
• Troubleshoot client issues independently and with support for complex cases.
• Identify opportunities to integrate AI into existing SEO workflows to improve efficiency.
• Aid in training new hires on SEO concepts and industry best practices.
• Support client services deliverables during the sales process for upsells and new business.
• Lead internal and client communications and meetings, and present insights and reports.

Skills

Agency experience

Client relationship management

KPI goals

Data presentation

Communication skills

AI tools awareness

Tools

SEMrush

Ahrefs

Excel

Google Sheets

Google Analytics

Job description

The SEO Manager position operates at a high degree of autonomy and regularly pushes the team forward:

• Develop strategies and tactics that support client goals and drive strong organic marketing performance
• Build and maintain strong, deep client relationships with day-to-day contacts and senior stakeholders to ensure high client retention and growth
• Troubleshoot minor to complicated client issues independently and complex issues with support
• Implement and test new capabilities to enable client growth

In addition, SEO Managers:

• Aid in the training of new hires on basic and standard concepts relating to SEO and GEO
• Identify opportunities to integrate AI into existing SEO workflows to improve team-wide efficiency.
• Provide support for client services deliverables during the sales process for upsells and new business

CLIENT COMMUNICATION AND RELATIONSHIPS

• Develop strong relationships with clients and senior stakeholders
• Attend and participate in all meetings/calls with clients
• Communicate effectively with various audiences with occasional support
• Create and present insightful, meaningful, accurate reports and analysis with support on complex issues
• Execute the Workshop Digital client flag process and proactively identify resolutions
• Go the extra mile for assigned clients within the scope of the SOW

INTERNAL COMMUNICATION AND RELATIONSHIPS

• Proactively seek and gracefully accept feedback
• Tactfully share feedback with colleagues
• Immediately inform SEO Team Lead of any concerns or issues from clients when appropriate
• Inform SEO Team Lead of any updates, concerns, or potential points of interest from within the digital marketing community
• Share meaningful information that advances the team
• Participate in the interview process
• Lead special projects with support

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

• Identify new opportunities for clients to meet their business goals
• Independently identify opportunities for potential case studies and coordinate with marketing for case study development
• Manage beta tests of new services for client set
• May support the sales team by assisting with RFPs, presentations, audits, and SOWs
• Elevate client requests for SOW changes with minimal support

TRAINING

• Regularly identify opportunities to update and expand training content
• Occasionally develop original technical training content with QA
• Regularly conduct team trainings to help develop team expertise
• Read industry blogs, books, whitepapers, and articles to stay current on relevant tactics, updates, and best practices
• Occasionally contribute thought leadership content to the Workshop Digital blog and the industry
• May serve as a mentor for junior team members

CHANNEL MANAGEMENT

• Identify, project, and obtain client buy-in and approval, and regularly hit the KPI targets.
• Optimize client websites by managing a holistic search approach by developing and executing local, technical, and content strategies, using AI to scale planning and execution across mid-to-enterprise accounts.
• Use AI and machine learning features within Google Analytics and third-party tools to identify trends and anomalies in organic performance
• Utilize AI tools to brainstorm, outline, and draft content at scale, ensuring all output is manually refined for E-E-A-T
• Conduct comprehensive technical, content, and local SEO audits on complex issues
• Optimize client content for visibility within AI-generated search experiences (e.g., Google Gemini/AIO, ChatGPT, etc.) by focusing on authoritative citations, structured data, and conversational relevance.
• Optimize client websites through conversion rate optimization (CRO)
• Create and prioritize strategies and supporting tactics that embody clients’ business goals
• Take ownership and accountability of client's performance by meeting and exceeding client expectations and set KPIs Setup and review Google Analytics (and any other third-party tracking software)
• Develop and refine prompts to automate repetitive tasks like meta-tag generation, schema markup creation, and initial keyword research & clustering.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of demonstrated agency experience with mid-to-enterprise-level clients, with respect to:
• Building strong relationships
• Identifying, projecting, setting, and hitting client KPI goals
• Prioritizing workload with minimal support to meet deadlines
• Creating insightful, actionable, and accurate insights for client strategies and reports with minimal support
• Presenting data and insights in a way that is logical, clear, and actionable with minimal support
• Creating effective meeting agendas and leading client meetings with minimal support
• Delivering core training, as needed
• Proven track record of managing a full client workload consisting of medium-complexity clients and some high-complexity clients. Demonstrated ability to temporarily take on additional work during crunch periods
• Familiarity with AI-native search engines and LLM-based research tools (e.g., Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT).
• Demonstrated ability to evaluate AI output for "hallucinations" or inaccuracies, specifically regarding technical SEO recommendations and data reporting
• Advanced and courteous written, verbal, and visual communication skills
• Advanced-level skills in Microsoft Office and Google Workspace, particularly in Excel and Google Sheets
• Advanced-level skills with SEMrush or Ahrefs
• A comprehensive health benefit package, including 2 medical plans, dental, and vision insurance
• Life insurance, short-term, and long-term disability
• Profit sharing
• 2x a year company-wide meetup in Richmond, VA
• Committee Membership (Community, Culture, Health & Wellness)
• 1x US Search Awards - Best Small PPC Agency
• 8x Outside Best Places to Work
• 8x Virginia Business Best Places to Work
• 3x Search Engine Land Finalist
• Expected base salary range is $75,000 - $80,000 annually, based on experience

Equal Opportunity & Inclusion Statement

As an equity-affirming company, Workshop Digital searches for, encourages, and engages with individuals and groups that represent diversity in our community. We not only challenge discrimination with regard to gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, racial identity, faith identity, age, disability, and social class, but we also consciously make efforts to reach out and include diversity in employment, vendors, and clients. All individuals authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. should apply.

We are looking for 1 hybrid employee in Richmond, VA.

We work as an extension of our client's marketing teams, creating customized digital marketing strategies tailored to their business goals and service offerings.

We are a dedicated, experienced team of digital marketing analysts who work closely with our clients every step of the way to provide a deep knowledge of their business, competitors, and industry. By understanding our client's ideal target audiences and differentiating them from the competition, we ensure their brand stands out and achieves impactful results.