Who: Memory Lane (formerly Classmates.com)
Position : SEO Director
Where: Seattle (Waterfront)
What: If you love debating the pros and cons of canonical tags, get a thrill every time a 301 redirect goes live, and find yourself explaining SEO to complete strangers just for the joy of seeing them “get it”, then this is the job for you.
Classmates.com now part of MemoryLane.com, one of the world’s first online social networks — is seeking an SEO rockstar to join the Marketing team as an SEO Director to drive significant increases in natural search traffic. As a key member of the team, you’ll be responsible for defining SEO priorities, and will help direct a cross-functional team focused on SEO that includes product, engineering, writers and information architects. Candidates must have a demonstrated record of quantitative/analytical rigor, creative problem solving, and strategic execution to join our team. Living and breathing SEO is an absolute MUST!
In other words, we’re looking for a SEO professional to make changes to our website to optimize for search acquisition (ensuring sites are crawlable and extractable by search engines and compelling to visitors) along with managing the day-to-day search engine optimization strategy to maximize traffic and profitability.
Responsibilities: This will not be a job for the faint of heart. You’ll be tasked with navigating a rapidly changing social networking landscape, and assuming full responsibility for the results of your efforts. But you’ll also have some natural advantages, such as:
• One of the very first social networking sites, ever.
• A database of 50 million members, including 3 million paid subscribers.
• A subscription-based business model that makes Classmates one of the few, if not the only, highly profitable social networks in existence.
• A motivated team of industry leaders with big plans and a commitment to shake things up in the interest of change.
Your day-to-day will look something like this:
Overall:
• Monitor daily site performance metrics, and work with various teams to produce and analyze weekly, monthly, and annual reports measuring the performance of the websites and online marketing campaigns.
• Utilize web analytics and other tools to research, analyze, and monitor customer, competitor, technological and demographic trends so that market opportunities may be realized and implemented.
• Build and coordinate a shared vision with extended departments to gain support for strategic initiatives and balance the needs of multiple stakeholders.
• Analyze and translate quantitative and qualitative data from web analytics tool into an actionable SEO plan.
• Manage deliverables, reporting, strategy implementation and all communications for SEO strategy.
Strategic:
• Translate strategic online marketing plans from the larger organization into executable and measurable roadmaps for websites.
• Serve as internal search expert to ensure best practices are shared and leveraged by all groups
• Research and develop SEO best practices to identify new market opportunities and maximize traffic growth and identify a robust SEO keyword list.
• Leverage Web 2.0, social networking, user generated content and PR releases to drive qualified traffic.
• Recommend and prioritize code and tag optimization, linking, site structure, content recommendations, etc.
• Analyze SEO landing pages and the associated search keywords, and recommend site changes accordingly.
Implementation:
• Drive SEO projects, working collaboratively with writers, product managers and engineers to ensure we optimize speed to market and ongoing iteration (test & learn).
• Reviews product requirements for new releases and works closely with Product Managers, Designers, and Development to implement changes.
• Define SEO measures of success and report on performance. Work with engineering to develop world-class SEO reporting capabilities using SQL, Excel and 3rd party measurement tools.
• Establish processes that incorporate SEO best practices in to site architecture and design teams’ day to day work.
Evaluation:
• Maintains and increases professional and technical knowledge and currency by attending workshops, reviewing professional publications, establishing personal networks, and participating in professional societies.
• Identify SEO priorities and requirements through data analysis and your knowledge of best practices.
Performs other duties as assigned or apparent.
Qualifications:
• 5+ years working as a SEO Manager, Director of online marketing, or SEO specialist or similar role in which you were responsible for the organic SEO of your site.
• A thorough knowledge of Web Design and Development as normally obtained through the completion of a bachelor’s degree in computer science or related field preferred.
• Strong understanding of Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools.
• Must have a basic understanding of internet programming languages (not necessarily code a web site from the ground up, but how a footer file works, how include files work, domain hosting, image linking, etc.) Skills to include HTML and CSS a plus.
• Strong quantitative analytical skills with meticulous attention to detail. Comfortable working with raw data sets to generate reports & insights. Must have in-depth analytical skills in interpreting web analytics data, formulating conclusions, developing strategies based on analysis and experience with web analytics/technology applications.
• Extensive knowledge of the search engine industry, industry standards, best practices, search engine algorithms and ranking strategies. Solid understanding of SEO issues involving site architecture, keyword generation, search-optimized content, link building strategies, and blog optimization.
• Deep technical knowledge in search technologies and meta data implementation. Additional knowledge of personalized search and how social media is influencing search marketing is also needed.
• Developing and maintaining Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies, teaming, project planning and execution across multiple departments and teams.
• Proven ability to orchestrate change in large organization by effectively influencing others to achieve a common goal. Should be a positive and active leader, effective and efficient in communicating across technical and non-technical departments.
• Managing vendor relationships relating to SEO-specific projects.
• Keeping pace with the changes in the SEO industry and trends to ensure compliance and efficiency with the latest SEO guidelines and algorithms.
• Educating internal resources on the importance of SEO.
• URLs of Web sites you’ve worked on that are demonstrably improved due to your specific contributions.
About us:
Memory Lane™ features over 100 million pieces of nostalgia including everything from vintage magazines to classic movie trailers and the largest online collection of high school yearbooks. You can still stay in touch with fellow high school grads through Classmates®, now part of Memory Lane.
Local area candidates only, and please note we are not able to offer visa sponsorship, visa transfer, or corp-corp arrangements.
Contact: Apply online.
