Senior Manager of AEO & SEO

About the opportunity Contentful is searching for an AEO, SEO Lead to join our Brand Studio team. As generative engines, answer engines, and AI-powered interfaces become the primary way people discover information, brands need a new kind of search leadership — one that goes beyond rankings and traffic and focuses on visibility, authority, and influence in both human and AI-experiences. You will own the strategy, evolution, and execution of Contentful’s approach to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), and AI Optimization (AIO) — with SEO as a critical, supporting foundation. This includes direct ownership of search and discovery performance for Contentful’s marketing website, contentful.com . You’ll deeply impact the entire lifecycle — from inclusion and citation in AI-generated responses to measurable impact on traffic, engagement, conversions, pipeline, and closed-won revenue. You will design and lead a modern discovery program that spans AI search engines and answer engines, structured content for machine interpretation, brand authority and trust signals, and traditional SEO where it still matters. This is a strategic, programmatic, and leadership role. You’ll work cross-functionally with content, product marketing, web, brand, cross-functional technical teams, and demand generation to ensure Contentful is discoverable, citable, and authoritative in all the ways people find information today. What to expect? Lead our AI-era discovery strategy Own the design and execution of a multi-quarter roadmap for GEO, AEO, AI discovery, and traditional search initiatives – including priorities, success metrics, and operating models Lead ongoing performance measurement and analysis, defining success beyond traffic, including AI visibility, citations, authority, and downstream impact like conversions, pipeline and revenue. Design and run experiments, analyze outcomes, and refine strategy based on results; share learnings with leadership to inform content, web, and product strategy Establish clear guidance for how Contentful content should be created, structured, optimized, and distributed to maximize visibility in AI-generated responses Create operating rhythms, documentation, and enablement so best practices are consistently adopted across teams Identify and implement improvements with web team to allow AI agents, including search bots, LLM crawlers, and conversational assistants, to efficiently interpret, index, and act on Contentful content Own Contentful’s search and discovery tooling strategy, including evaluation, selection, and ongoing use of platforms across SEO, GEO, and AI discovery (e.g., Profound, AirOps, Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, Search Console, Contentful Analytics, and emerging AI search analytics tools) Thought leadership and external visibility Serve as an internal and external subject matter expert on modern search, GEO, and AI discovery Partner with Brand, Comms, and Product Marketing to shape POVs, content, talks, and narratives about the future of search Act as a visible, authentic “Customer Zero,” representing how Contentful uses its own platform to power a cohesive search and discovery program in customer conversations, webinars, and events Cross-functional partnership and leadership Influence and align senior stakeholders around priorities, tradeoffs, and investment decisions Directly manage a team of agencies, contractors, and full-time employees supporting search and discovery initiatives Partner closely with Demand, PMM, and Product to connect discovery efforts to pipeline impact, revenue, and product adoption Serve as a subject matter expert to the Product team to inform product roadmap decisions and innovation SEO foundations Ensure strong SEO fundamentals across technical health, content performance, and site structure Use SEO insights as inputs to broader GEO and AEO strategy and consistently advise the team on best-practices and data-driven decision ... (truncated, view full listing at source)