Role Description Our client, a new Silicon Valley-based profitable B2C product startup building innovative mobile solutions for the planet, is looking for a Lead SEO to set the strategy and lead the execution of organic growth across three brands in the highly competitive privacy and cybersecurity space. This is a senior, strategic role: you'll own the vision, build and mentor the team and external partners behind it, and translate ambitious growth targets into roadmaps that ship. Critically, this role goes beyond traditional search. We need a leader who can win across the full modern discovery landscape — SEO, AEO, AIO, and GEO — capturing visibility not just in Google and Bing, but in answer engines, AI Overviews, and generative platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini. You'll be defining how three privacy-focused brands show up as people increasingly search, ask, and discover through AI. Responsibilities - Leadership & Strategy - Own and lead the end-to-end organic growth strategy across all three brands, balancing shared best practices with each brand's distinct audience, positioning, and goals. - Build, mentor, and grow the SEO function — managing internal team members, freelancers, and external agencies, and raising the bar on execution. - Set the vision and quarterly/annual roadmaps for SEO, AEO, AIO, and GEO, and align them with product launches and company objectives. - Act as the organic-growth thought partner to leadership, translating performance into clear narratives and strategic recommendations. - Champion experimentation and a test-and-learn culture across all discovery channels. - SEO, AEO, AIO & GEO Strategy and Execution - Develop and execute comprehensive strategies to grow organic traffic, rankings, and conversions across multiple markets, languages, and brands. - Optimize content and site structure for traditional search and for answer engines, AI Overviews, and generative platforms (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini). - Define and lead the GEO/AEO playbook — how our brands earn citations, mentions, and recommendations inside AI-driven and conversational search experiences. - Conduct keyword, entity, and competitive research specific to the VPN, privacy, and cybersecurity sectors. - Monitor the evolving search and AI landscape and continuously adapt strategy ahead of competitors. - Technical SEO Management - Lead comprehensive technical SEO audits across all three brands and prioritize the optimization roadmap. - Partner with development teams to ensure SEO best practices in site architecture, page speed, mobile optimization, and core web vitals. - Own structured data, XML sitemaps, and robots.txt strategy — including markup that supports AI and answer-engine visibility. - Direct international SEO strategy, including hreflang implementation for multi-region targeting. - Content Strategy & Optimization - Define content strategies that drive organic traffic, rankings, and qualified leads across the full funnel — from awareness to conversion. - Guide the creation of high-performing editorial content that educates users on privacy, cybersecurity, and VPN technology. - Lead content optimization for featured snippets, AI Overviews, and generative-search citation. - Shape content around search intent and entity coverage so our brands are both rankable and "answerable". - Ensure content compliance with privacy regulations and industry guidelines while maintaining organic effectiveness. - Analytics & Reporting - Define the KPIs and measurement framework for SEO/AEO/AIO/GEO across all three brands, including organic traffic, rankings, AI/answer visibility, conversions, and revenue attribution. - Deliver clear monthly and quarterly performance reviews and strategic recommendations to leadership. - Use data to identify opportunities and drive prioritization. - Establish and maintain tracking across Google Analytics, Search Console, and relevant SEO and AI-visibility tools. - Link Building & Digital PR - Direct white-hat link building and digital PR strategies appropriate for the cybersecurity industry. - Build relationships with relevant publications, privacy advocates, and technology media — including the high-authority sources that AI models cite. - Coordinate with PR teams on SEO-focused campaigns and thought leadership. - Oversee backlink monitoring and disavowal to protect domain authority. Qualifications - 6+ years of hands-on SEO experience with demonstrated results in competitive industries, including experience leading strategy and/or people. - Experience owning organic growth across multiple brands, sites, or markets. - 2+ years in cybersecurity, privacy, fintech, or other regulated industries preferred. - Proven track record managing SEO for websites with 300K+ monthly organic sessions. - Experience managing internal team members, agencies, and/or external contractors. Requirements - Expert knowledge of SEO tools including SEMrush, Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, Google Search Console, and Google Analytics. - Strong understanding of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and how they impact SEO. - Experience with CMS platforms (WordPress, Webflow, etc.) and SEO plugins. - Familiarity with server-side factors affecting SEO (hosting, CDNs, redirects). - Knowledge of international SEO and multi-language website optimization. Benefits - Lead the function: Own organic growth strategy across three brands and shape how we win in both traditional and AI-driven search. - Fast-paced, innovative environment: Be part of a fast-growing company in the digital privacy space. - Remote work: Enjoy the flexibility of working from anywhere. - Impact: Your strategy will directly affect our growth and reach millions of users worldwide. - Collaborative culture: Work with a passionate, creative, and motivated team.