About the role
Avenue Z is seeking a strategic and forward-thinking AEO/SEO Strategist who will design, implement, execute, and iterate AEO programs that improve how brands appear across AI-driven discovery environments. This role sits at the intersection of prompt strategy, LLM analysis, measurement, and cross-functional activation, turning complex signals into clear actions across technical SEO/AEO, owned media, and earned media workstreams.
This individual will act as a strategic consultant and day-to-day Client lead, and must be able to understand the Client’s overall marketing plans, business goals, and KPIs, and align these inputs with AEO strategies that will improve AI visibility and support AI-assisted conversion.
This individual must be intellectually curious, systems-minded, and comfortable testing emerging tools. You must embrace AI in your day-to-day workflows, yet also remain a skeptic and interrogator of what AI produces to assist in your work. You must be prepared to challenge conventional SEO thinking while maintaining Avenue Z’s standards for quality, ethics, and client safety.
Responsibilities
Organic Strategy & Client Leadership
- Lead organic strategy for a portfolio of clients, building annual and quarterly roadmaps that account for both traditional SEO performance and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) visibility across AI-driven search environments.
- Serve as the primary point of contact for clients on AEO / SEO, guiding strategic conversations around organic growth, AI Overviews, LLM-powered answer engines, and evolving search behavior.
- Translate search trends and performance insights into clear strategic priorities that support clients’ broader marketing plans and business goals.
- Connect organic performance to business outcomes, translating complex SEO and AEO concepts into clear, actionable recommendations for senior stakeholders.
- Help clients understand how evolving search behavior impacts brand visibility, competitive positioning, and growth opportunities.
Search Landscape, Content & AEO Analysis
- Conduct in-depth keyword, prompt, and topic research, content gap analyses, and competitive analyses to identify opportunities across the full funnel.
- Analyze SERPs and LLM responses, including traditional organic results, SERP features, AI-generated summaries, and other generative search experiences, to understand how client content surfaces and where it’s missing.
- Evaluate how client content performs across traditional and generative search, identifying opportunities to strengthen visibility, authority, and discoverability.
- Partner with content, PR, and creative teams to inform briefs, messaging, and content structures that improve discoverability and entity clarity across search and AI surfaces.
Technical SEO & Site Health
- Strengthen technical foundations, including site architecture, internal linking, indexation, structured data, and performance, using agency tools including Sitebulb and Screaming Frog to improve crawlability, entity understanding, and overall discoverability.
- Collaborate with web development and product teams to scope and prioritize technical fixes and enhancements, ensuring recommendations are feasible and aligned with broader roadmaps.
- Apply technical SEO best practices to AEO, with a clear understanding of how these elements influence both traditional rankings and generative visibility.
Analytics, Reporting & Insights
- Translate performance data from GA4, Search Console, Data Studio, and leading SEO and AEO tools into clear, actionable narratives that tie generative visibility signals, ranking shifts, traffic trends, and SERP feature changes back to client goals. Agency tools include Ahrefs, Peec, Profound, and Writesonic, among others.
- Craft Client-specific reporting and insight frameworks based on our agency-wide standards that highlight both AEO indicators such as AI Overview presence, Share of Voice, and generative citations as well as traditional SEO KPIs.
- Use reporting to shape client strategy, prioritize roadmap decisions, and communicate progress in a way that is clear to both tactical and senior stakeholders.
AI-Driven Workflows & Innovation
- Leverage our proprietary Z/OS AI platform to accelerate research, synthesize insights, and support scalable SEO and AEO workflows. Z/OS includes access to tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
- Test, refine, and document AI-driven workflows and AEO experiments that enhance strategic thinking, surface new opportunities, and shape Avenue Z’s evolving approach to organic visibility.
- Evaluate AI-generated insights critically, ensuring recommendations are grounded in real business context rather than automation alone.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Collaborate with PR, Content, Analytics, and Creative teams to build integrated programs where organic insights inform channel strategy, creative, and messaging.
- Partner across teams to ensure SEO and AEO recommendations support broader client strategy, campaign planning, and execution priorities.
Qualifications
- 3-5 years of experience in SEO strategy, including 1 year in AEO / GEO strategy, across multiple industries or brands, ideally within performance marketing, digital agencies, or in-house growth/marketing teams.
- Experience building and driving SEO and AEO strategy across multiple industries, with proven ability to evolve strategy as search shifts toward AI-generated summaries and generative search interfaces.
- A builder mindset: excited to help shape processes, playbooks, and best practices, and continually iterate on them as new data and platforms emerge.
- Strong client presence: confident presenting, fielding questions, and pushing thinking in a constructive way.
- Strong technical SEO foundation, including site architecture, structured data, indexing diagnostics, and performance analysis, with a clear understanding of how these elements influence both traditional rankings and generative visibility.
- Demonstrated ability to tie SEO and AEO performance to business outcomes and communicate impact to senior Client stakeholders.
- Comfort working with AI and LLM tools beyond surface-level prompting, using them to analyze data, pressure-test strategic ideas, support research, and improve workflows, while knowing when human judgment should override automation.
- Strong fluency with analytics platforms such as GA4, Search Console, Data Studio (formerly known as Looker Studio), and leading SEO and AEO tools such as ahrefs, Profound, Peec, and Writesonic.
- Critical thinker who evaluates AI-generated insights and AEO opportunities through real business context rather than relying solely on automation.
- Excellent project management skills and experience managing multiple clients or stakeholders, shifting priorities, and cross-functional collaboration in fast-paced environments.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to distill complex SEO and AI-search concepts into clear, compelling narratives.
- Bachelor’s degree preferred, or equivalent practical experience in SEO, digital, analytics, or a related field.
Compensation & Benefits
- Compensation range: $75,000 - $85,000 annually.
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans.
- 401(k) plan with employer match.
- Flexible PTO and company holidays.
- Professional development opportunities