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One of the coolest SEO jobs around …
We are working with Angie’s List in its search for a Director of SEO based in Indianapolis, IN. The Director of SEO will be responsible for the development, delivery and execution of SEO marketing strategies and tactics that will improve Angie’s List rank in the search engines, drive qualified traffic and acquire new members.
Angie’s List helps consumers have happy transactions with local service professionals in more than 720 categories of service, ranging from home improvement to health care. More than 2 million subscribers across the U.S. share their consumer experiences and use Angie’s List to gain unlimited access to local ratings, exclusive discounts, the Angie’s List magazine, the Angie’s List complaint resolution service and information about how to make the most of their home improvement projects.
HARRY’S COMMENTS: Sally Hogshead is one of my all-time favorite business authors. Writing mostly on topics related to marketing and career development, Sally always seems to write the books I wish I’d written myself.
For example, Sally’s book “Radical Careering: 100 Truths to Jumpstart Your Job, Your Career, and Your Life” is outstanding and you should own a copy. You can click here to download Cherry Bombs, a supplement to Radical Careering. The supplement’s awesome, too.
My Top 10 favorite “Truths” from Radical Careering are …
- Do what you’d rather be doing.
- Aspire to be the dumbest person in the room.
- Politics happen when people feel insecure about their work.
- Being in a crap job isn’t your fault. Staying in a crap job is.
- Worry less, Do more.
- The most risky decision is not making one.
- You can be comfortable or outstanding – but not both.
- Go for nervous.
- Collect portable equity, which is the only form of job security today.
- Quality of work; Quality-of-life; Quality of compensation: PICK ONE.
Which brings me to today’s search with Angie’s List, …
… a company that was seemingly designed around the concepts in Radical Careering. In fact, the only one of these ten nuggets that doesn’t apply to Angie’s List is #10. Because at Angie’s List, you actually can have it all. The quality of work this phenomenal; The compensation is excellent; and the quality of life is tremendous. In fact, Angie’s List is one of the healthiest companies in America according to the folks at Interactive Health.
Constantly Evolving
Angie’s List was co-founded by William Oesterle and Angie Hicks in 1995. It was inspired by Hicks’ search for a reliable contractor in suburban Columbus on behalf of Oesterle, a venture capitalist and her former supervisor. The service started as a publication for reviews about home and lawn care, and Hicks went door-to-door, signing up members and collecting ratings on local contractors. Talk about moxie!
Today, Angie’s List has been experiencing tremendous growth, with more than 2,000,000 paid members and 2013 revenue of $245 million (which was 57% more than 2012 revenue). To keep growing, the company is redefining its brand message for both consumers and service providers, moving from a membership-only model to a transactional ecommerce model. These interconnected and self reinforcing businesses create great opportunities for personal and professional growth in the area of search marketing.
About the Role
Angie’s List has multiple business lines, each one revolving around content. These digital assets have millions of pages, broken into different segments. What that means for the Director of SEO is that you s/he must have extremely deep expertise in the 4 major areas of organic search:
- Keyword selection: Understanding user intent, keyword relevance, search volume, and business impact.
- Off-site influences: Understanding how to get the most out of directories, link bait campaigns, video syndication, blog commenting, social bookmarking, document sharing, press releases, and RSS feeds (among other things).
- On-site influences: Understanding technical issues such as 301 redirect mapping, micro-formatting, 404/500 errors, title and meta-tagging, relevancy and quality, canonical URLs, anchor text distribution, site maps and much more.
- Reporting and analytics: Understanding conversion funnels, user behavior and segmentation, social media authority, link types, search rankings, organic market share and more.
Plus: You’ll need to understand these things as they pertain to the mobile and tablet platforms, too. For every device, … for every database cohort, … for every market segment, … Angie’s List would like to rank Number 1 in the Google SERPs. Many of the keyword phrases for which you will be seeking the top-rank include things like “best Chicago plumber” or “Bronx carpet cleaner.” You can imagine how competitive (and numerous!) such search strings are.
Imagine optimizing all that content!
Obviously, the basic idea is to be at the right place at the right time, when hot buyers are ready to seriously inquire about the services of Angie’s List small business service providers. Google calls this the Zero Moment of Truth, and for Angie’s List to be there at exactly the right time involves bringing together dozens of internal and external resources.
Which is why as Director of SEO, the better part of your day will be spent analyzing traffic and buyer behavior; determining how changes to certain pages have impacted their ranking; and then working with the firm’s Technology and Engineering teams to ensure that all of the internal and external roadblocks to being Number 1 are overcome in a way that’s hard on the issues and soft on the people.
Is this job right for you?
It is … if you are smart as a whip. It is … if you have a track record of roaring success doing work like this. It is … if you can multi-task in a fast-paced environment. It is … if you understand that the sole point of SEO for ecommerce is to sell stuff in brand accretive, resource friendly ways. It is … if you not only love SEO — but also you read about it, talk about it, blog about it, attend conferences, and get excited about applying the latest SEO tips and tricks from Search Engine Land or Bruce Clay’s insanely great newsletter. If I have just described you to a “T”, we would love it if you applied below.
View Harry Joiner’s profile
Position Requirements:
- Deep experience leading the optimization of ecommerce through organic search engine results.
- A quantifiable history of improving organic search engine rank and driving sales from those efforts.
- A demonstrated background in identifying content needs and leading the development of content to best reach the firm’s SEO goals.
- Facility with technology to enable open communications with the SEO development team
What You Will Do:
- Create comprehensive SEO marketing strategies to build brand awareness and ensure adoption of the firm’s products.
- Increase Angie’s List rank for certain keyword sets in SERPs.
- Increase sales from SEO landing pages.
- Lead the marketing side of the SEO practice at Angie’s List
- Build and manage relationships with all members of the firm’s SEO practice, including technology, content and analytics.
- Communicate regularly with key stakeholders on SEO activities and outcomes.
- Stay up to date on industry trends, new business, growth opportunities, new and emerging markets, and ways to leverage search engines to drive growth.
- Additional responsibilities as assigned.
What You Will Have:
- An undergraduate degree in business, marketing, or related degree. Graduate degree is a plus.
- 7+ years of SEO experience in a consumer facing industry.
- 2-5 years of management experience.
- A sharp mind for SEO marketing strategy.
- Deep knowledge on target markets, competitive industry, strategy and products.
- Solid proficiency in MS Excel, Word, Outlook and PowerPoint.
- Strong analytical skills regarding ROI and KPIs.
- Ability to maintain self-motivation and operate with an entrepreneurial mindset.
- Ability to manage multiple projects under challenging deadlines.
- Skills in complex problem solving, judgment, critical thinking, creative thinking and decision making.
- Experience and ease with external facing communication; both written and verbal.
- Ability to be highly organized, accurate, timely and able to prioritize.
- Ability to tolerate stress and be adaptable, flexible, persistent, and versatile.
Additional Details:
- This position occasionally works evenings and more than 40 hours per week.
Applications for this position are being coordinated by Harry Joiner. To apply, CLICK HERE. Candidates, please be sure to email Harry for a packet of market research and company / competitive intel that will differentiate you in your candidacy. Due to the intensely competitive nature of this search, thorough preparation for these interviews with this proprietary material is strongly recommended.
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