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We are working with Dr. Leonard’s in its search for a world-class SEO Manager based in Edison, NJ. Dr. Leonard’s Healthcare Corp and its affiliated company AmeriMark Direct, a Top 500 Internet Retailer with catalog operations in Edison, NJ and Cleveland, OH is currently recruiting for a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Manager. This is one of the coolest SEO jobs around.
This position requires an individual who takes initiative, is innovative, is a self-starter, organized, detail oriented, a team player, and has the ability to work on multiple projects and meet deadlines. The company markets thousands of items through 7 websites and related catalogs: CarolWrightGifts.com, DrLeonards.com, AmeriMark.com, TimeForMeCatalog.com, FeelGoodStore.com, BeautyBoutique.com and MyFavoriteShoeStore.com
The SEO Manager will drive, jointly create and oversee our company’s search engine optimization strategy to maximize traffic and profitability across our website properties. The successful candidate must demonstrate an advanced understanding of: SEO tactics, search engine algorithms and ranking factors, and possess a forward looking approach to the search industry and the future of SEO.
HARRY’S COMMENTS: There was a slew of fantastic blog posts from last week’s SMX West conference about the changing landscape for SEO. Never has SEO been so integrated with other channels, and never has a strategic mindset been so necessary for SEO success. Gone are the days when an online retailer could get page one results just by owning a keyword rich domain, getting a few high quality back links, and making sure their site wasn’t built on frames.
Nowadays, SEOs can incur significant penalties for seriously running afoul of Google’s quality guidelines. With multiple Google updates such as Penguin, Panda, and Hummingbird, Google’s rules and regulations are reminiscent of the tax code, where SEOs are the new CPAs.
Ever been audited? Me neither – probably because I have aligned myself with the sharpest CPA available; someone with a long track record of understanding how to manage my firm’s exposure to the ever changing tax code while helping my firm win in the marketplace, fair and square.
Metaphorically, that’s what this role is about.
This is an opportunity to own the organic search channel for a very large business. Dr. Leonard’s is a catalog and Internet retailer selling a variety of merchandise for boomers and seniors across several catalog titles and websites. The firm has made an excellent name for itself offering value priced merchandise ranging from apparel to health and beauty products, to jewelry and shoes.
The Boom in Boomer spending.
While the online channel is already a growing and critically important share of the business, there is enormous upside for the firm in selling online. Marketing to boomers and seniors can be extraordinarily profitable, and there are a number of factors that make this demographic attractive for multichannel merchants:
- Many futurists believe that boomers and seniors will become much more wired in the coming years. Boomer and senior use of online social networks topped 80% from 2009 to 2011 according to Pew Research.
- Health and wellness care will come to dominate the thinking of seniors, and The Association of Medical Colleges has warned of a shortage of as many as 90,000 doctors by 2020, coupled with a growing disinclination towards geriatric care by students and graduates due to cuts in Medicare and other limitations built into Obamacare. (I’m not being political; I’m a marketer.) This trend is very likely to impact sales of Boomer and senior merchandise online.
- According to research by Life Goes Strong, 57% of Americans older than 65 said they were very likely or extremely likely to stay in their current homes. Again, this is a bullish signal for firms who understand how to make it easy for seniors to shop at home.
- Marketing to boomers and seniors will reassert itself as the largest target market for consumer brands. In 2010, boomers and seniors spent $1.3 trillion more than Generation X and Millennials combined.
Dr. Leonard’s is well-positioned to take advantage of these trends.
When the client reset to me about this search, I was shocked to hear that Dr. Leonard’s is an IR-250 company. The firm has 7 websites across two locations: Edison, New Jersey, and Cleveland, Ohio. These include CarolWrightGifts.com and AmeriMark.com. Currently, some of Dr. Leonard’s team members are sharing the SEO duties, but the firm seeks an SEO who lives and breathes search marketing. Activities will include improving site structure, improving all site content, and managing and coordinating internal and external copywriters.
The name of the game is integrating Dr. Leonard’s SEO strategy with its overall ecommerce strategy for all sites. To do that, you’ll need to know about …
- Keyword research and targeting with the right tools, intuition, testing, and experience
- Funnel optimization, including conversion rate optimization
- Testing and optimizing content for users, including reviewing metrics like time on site, engagement, bounce rate, and more.
- Content strategy, which probably needs to tie into the overall business strategy.
- On page optimization
- Making the site search engine friendly, which is a complex monster involving faceted navigation, Ajax crawling, JavaScript, and other issues
- XML site maps
- Analytics, which may involve everything from link monitoring to brand alerts and mentions, to social media tracking and more.
- Vertical search listing management, including video, images, news, blogs, and shopping
- Usability and user experience
- Competitive research
- Social media marketing
- Syndication, scraping, copyright, and duplicate content issues
But: You’ll need to do these things merely as a means to driving revenue, improving Dr. Leonard’s cost per lead, and reducing its cost of sale. Truly, it’s essential that you be able to connect the dots between what you are doing and how that connects to driving profitable growth. If you can’t do that, you’re in trouble. Additionally, this role’s hiring manager would like to see you have a major impact in nonbranded search.
To hit the ground running in the first 90 days, management would love to see you perform a complete audit of the company’s 7 websites and its current plan for integrated organic search marketing. My personal belief is that existing plan is very solid, but you will own it so you will need to make sure that the plan has legs.
Is this role right for you?
Well, it is if you have experience with agencies, either on the agency side or the client side. Additionally, if a career in management appeals to you, then this role would certainly provide inroads for that. Content marketing experience would be very beneficial, and if you can write copy that appeals to both humans and search engines, you are way ahead of the game.
Naturally, you’ll need to have a transferable process for outreach, website analysis, and project management skills. But if you’ve made it this far in the job posting, you probably have those things anyway. If so, we’d love to hear from you.
Key Responsibilities / Performance Requirements:
- Responsible for managing the SEO programs to conversion-based targets and work closely with the Paid Search team to maximize overall search ROI
- Perform regular site audits to ensure priority site sections are crawl-able, are optimized for the proper keyword focus and provide users content/functionality to match searcher intent
- Keyword Management and Analysis: Produce high-level keyword analysis while tracking, managing and distributing daily and weekly organic traffic and ranking reports
- Develop and execute internal link optimization efforts and help manage external outreach programs
- Use web analytics platform and SEO tools to monitor, analyze and optimize website activity, traffic trends, SERP rankings and customer acquisition metrics, through monthly and ad-hoc reports
- Provide SEO support to Web Development teams for all ongoing web projects, including new product launches, page refreshes, site re-designs
- Web Article & Content Creation. Translate analyst research into clear, engaging, actionable copy for website, PR and email marketing needs
- Link Analysis: including opportunities, broken links, redirects, cross linking
- Generate top‐tier recommendations for optimizing site architecture, optimizing URL structures and patterns for maximized indexing and keyword relevancy
- Candidate will work with developers, graphics designers and external partners to develop and implement customized and targeted SEO and landing page strategies to maximize profit in conjunction with Natural Search campaigns.
- Set up a process to continuously educate teams on SEO best practices and emerging optimization techniques
Required Skills:
- B.S/B.A. degree in a related field
- Minimum of 3 years of experience at a dedicated SEO company or as an in-house SEO analyst with an agency
- Advanced understanding of SEO best practices, search engine algorithms and ranking strategies
- Experience conducting data-driven SEO site audits and familiarity with tools such as Conductor Searchlight, Moz, etc.
- Proven ability to architect and execute strategies which have driven large volumes of organic search traffic
- Experience with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX is required. Experience in Flash, XML, XHTML, PHP, ASP/.net/.aspx,is a plus
- Solid analytical skills with key performance metrics is a must, with an understanding of Google Analytics, Omniture or Coremetrics, Google/Bing Webmaster Tools
- Experience working with micro-data and Schema.org standards
- Copywriting best practice knowledge for on-page and off-page copy
- Should possess a good understanding of A/B testing, website usability and conversion optimization principals
- Ecommerce/online retail experience preferred
- Paid Search experience preferred
UPDATE: THIS SEARCH IS CLOSED.
PS – If you’re thinking about changing jobs this year (though us or anyone else), you might want to check out this post on why even TOP candidates get rejected.
