SEO Jobs Los Angeles: Transamerica seeks an SEO Manager (Los Angeles, CA)

Under Anthony Ginn’s leadership, @Transamerica was the first financial brand to trend nationwide on Twitter — a feat they’ve accomplished six times now. The firm has reached over 2 million people on Twitter, once surpassing the Golden Globes. Transamerica was the first ever financial brand on Tumblr and Reddit, and it was the fastest growing financial brand on Pinterest last year.

According to Anthony, “We just won an award for our Tumblr feed and we’ve earned more than 5 million total YouTube views. Our Google traffic is reaching new highs all the time, and we’ve seen massive increases in our social share of voice. We’re on a roll. There’s never been a better time to join our team.”

But all this growth has created a giant spike in demand for search marketing expertise across the entire company. This increased visibility calls for smart, driven SEO professionals who know how to operate in a fast-paced environment. Transamerica has more than 1300 websites – some of which will play a critical role in the company’s future. (Some of which won’t.) You’ll need an 80/20 mentality towards getting things done.

• Is ready to step into a larger role at a bigger company with plenty of growth potential
• Wants to move from the crazy agency world to the happy client side
• Desires the freedom and entrepreneurship of a startup with the resources, budget and stability of a big company
• Relies on data, analytics and past SEO experience to drive sound business optimization recommendations, tool additions, and actionable decisions
• Strives to make a difference, be heard and have their work be recognized

On any given day, your job will be to manage Transamerica’s SEO platform and track more than 25,000 keywords across several keyword groupings. Through your rigorous analysis of those keywords, we would expect you to make recommendations to the site’s development team regarding how TA’s web assets’ architectures can be improved, as well as its backlinking, social media, and content development strategies.

From time to time you’ll be reporting the sites’ KPIs and organic search performance to TA’s division heads and other key stakeholders. You can also expect to collaborate extensively with TA’s UX, content, social media, and paid search teams. For the UX team, your insights will significantly guide the wireframing process which will improve site functionality and the development of new site features and pages.

Of course, you can expect to enjoy quite a bit of face-time with TA’s analysts, so bring your A-game in Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, and other analytics software.

To make all this happen, we’re looking for someone who lives and breathes organic search. Meaning, not only will you need to be up-to-date with SEO best practices, but we’d like you to bring to the team a sense of how Google’s own values and update histories are likely to impact future changes in its algorithm. For example, Google has recently downgraded the significance of Authorship in its SERPs. But what does that mean for Author Rank? And what will the difference mean to Transamerica? It’s your job to know.

Before you apply, ask yourself how comfortable you are presenting in front of others. In general, are you knowledgeable about how your organization functions? Do you know how to get things done through both formal channels and your own informal network? Typically, do you understand the origin in reasoning behind key policies, practices, and procedures? Can you write clearly and specifically in a variety of communication settings and styles? Do you relate well to all kinds of people, both up and down the organization?

Dude, it matters! Given how how deeply integrated organic search is with every other touch point in an organization, it’s important that you know how to “work a building” in a way that makes people happy to see you and glad they were able to help you further the cause of white hat SEO at Transamerica.

The role is perfect for a smart, process-oriented SEO who’s passionate about how consumers interact with online experiences. Ideally, this SEO Manager would have worked in a large organization and understand the opportunities and complexities that come with working in such a large organization. Having said that, Transamerica Digital is essentially an in-house agency, with its own startup culture and eclectic vibe.

The ideal candidate will be able to utilize past experiences in matrixed organizations and be effective at interacting intra-departmentally as well as externally to TA’s internal partner clients on both a technical and marketing level to provide insight and actionable information to improve the firm’s digital experience. You must be viewed as the subject matter expert in regards to SEO and site optimization.

Anthony’s Digital Group is comprised of some of the smartest, most relatable and forward-thinking marketers in LA. Like them, you’ll need to have phenomenal search marketing chops along with a positive outlook on life. Also like them, you’ll need to be (somewhat) high-energy and very positive-outcome oriented. In a perfect world, you’d have responsive / mobile experience and be very comfortable working in a lean, agile environment.

If any of this describes you, please ring us up. As usual, my kickoff call with Anthony ran more than an hour, and he shared tons of information with me regarding Transamerica’s digital goals, strategies, tactics, tools, and operating philosophies. I’m happy to share that intel with qualified candidates, and you don’t want to apply without it!