Summary:

The Sr Director & Managing Editor, SEO & Branded Content plays a pivotal role in shaping a SEO-first editorial strategy that prioritizes authenticity, EEAT, and operational excellence while also building brand awareness, consideration and customer acquisition. This position will leverage data to enhance the editorial process. This role will also require proficiency in leading an SEO editorial team handling diverse financial topics across varying business development phases.

Essential Job Duties and Responsibilities:

Develop and oversee the implementation of an SEO-centered operational playbook for editorial purposes.

Define operational metrics such as productivity, throughput, and standards of excellence by leveraging workflow data to optimize internal process and output to drive peak efficiency

Build an SEO-first editorial culture grounded in data-driven insights, leveraging emerging technologies (e.g. AI Assist tools) to increase the quality/helpfulness of our SEO editorial content and workflow efficiencies.

Guide the team to consistently meet content production goals, ensuring high-quality outputs that align with strategic objectives.

Collaborate with the external SEO Agency and other Partners to internalize and coordinate joint editorial activities. Assist in providing strategic and tactical direction to the Agency based on performance, market conditions, and business direction.

Evaluate and refine SEO workflows, building hypotheses for automation tools like Jira and SEMRush to drive productivity and optimize editorial processes.

Collaborate with Creative, Brand Strategists and Content Strategists to architect brand identities, tones, personalities, etc. – with ownership of the continuity of this strategy in the SEO editorial across our sites. Deliver on tactical SEO strategies that align with the SEO-driven content roadmap and achieve key objectives, while also achieving larger Brand objectives.

Work closely with SEO, Design, and Product teams to ensure page components align with EEAT strategy, supporting high-quality content creation and audience engagement. This includes both written, long-form educational content as well as video, audio and interactive.

Establish and expand our early-stage Data Journalism and Digital PR initiative by identifying potential data journalism topics, building and overseeing a team of freelance data journalists, and integrating outcomes and content across digital brand platforms.

Lead and manage the day-to-day workflow and budget for the team by. owning the freelance budget, assessing freelancer quality, and aligning resources with quarterly and long-term content goals.

Cultivate freelancer network of subject matter experts to contribute to the helpfulness and authority of our content across financial categories.

Partner with Marketing leadership to build comprehensive quarterly content roadmaps for our domains and financial categories that capture our target consumer in the SERP. Incorporate into the strategy how different page types of capture consumer intent.

Partner with product and engineering stakeholders when applicable to ensure that new bodies of work attached to our CMS are executed to uphold the needs of our Editorial team and maintained to embrace the latest technology opportunities for workflow optimization (e.g. AI).

Comply with all company policies and procedures.

Maintain regular and punctual attendance.

Other Job Duties and Responsibilities:

Performs other related duties as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

This position has direct reports. Manages staff and carries out supervisory responsibilities in accordance with the organization's policies and applicable laws. Responsibilities include interviewing, hiring, and training employees; planning, assigning, and directing work; appraising performance; rewarding and disciplining employees; addressing complaints and resolving problems.

Qualifications:

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential function satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.

Strong attention to operational detail: A deep understanding of measuring operational efficiency for editorial teams, a passion for integrating analytics into editorial roadmaps, and a track record of ensuring SEO content meets quality standards and aligns with strategic business objectives.

Innovative thinker: A forward-thinking approach to editorial practices, embracing emerging technologies and trends (e.g. AI), driving continuous improvements in our content strategy and audience engagement.

Results-oriented mindset: A focus on measurable outcomes, consistently analyzing performance metrics to refine strategies and drive continuous improvement in content production and engagement.

Proactive problem solver with a bias for action: A self-starter who thrives in fast-paced environments, adept at identifying challenges and implementing practical solutions swiftly to drive team success.

Exceptional communication and collaboration skills: Proven ability to work effectively across departments, aligning SEO, product, and engineering teams to optimize workflows, elevate content execution, and achieve shared goals.

Deep knowledge of the mortgage/home lending, real estate and finance industries is preferred.

Education and/or Experience:

3+ years of SEO editorial experience working on 'Your Money, Your Life' Personal Finance content: A deep understanding of personal finance topics, trends, and consumer needs, enabling you to create relevant and impactful content that empowers millions of readers to make smarter financial decisions. Mortgage and real estate knowledge is ideal. Experience with video content (short and long-form) is also helpful.

8+ years of total editorial people management and leadership experience: Proven ability to lead and inspire diverse editorial teams, fostering a collaborative environment that encourages creativity and growth while maintaining high-performance standards.

5+ years of SEO editorial experience overall: Demonstrated success in crafting and executing SEO strategies that elevate content visibility, drive organic growth, and align editorial initiatives with overarching business goals.

Certificates, Licenses, Registrations:

None Required

Work Complexity:

Problems and issues faced are highly complex, numerous and undefined, and require rigorous information gathering, analysis and investigation to understand the problem. Problems typically impact many departments or sub-functions. Problems are typically solved through drawing from market knowledge, prior experience and analysis of issues.

Work Environment:

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Work is normally performed in a typical interior office work environment which does not subject the employee to any hazardous or unpleasant elements. The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.

Physical Demands:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently required to sit and talk or hear.  The employee is occasionally required to stand; walk; use hands to finger, handle, or feel; and reach with hands and arms.  The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds.

Equal Employment Opportunity:

The company is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, ethnicity, color, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy, religion, national origin, age (40 and over), disability, military status, genetic information, or any other basis protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws.

Americans with Disabilities Act:

Applicants as well as employees who are or become disabled must be able to satisfactorily perform the essential job functions of the position either with or without reasonable accommodation. Applicants as well as employees are encouraged to meet with Human Resources as the organization shall review reasonable accommodations on a case-by-case basis in accordance with applicable law.

Job Responsibilities:

The statements reflect the general duties and responsibilities considered necessary to perform the essential functions of the job and should not be considered as an all-inclusive list of all the work requirements of the position. The company may change the specific job duties with or without prior notice based on the needs of the organization.