SEO / AIO Lead in Leeds

About the team: We’re a passionate bunch on a mission to make Vintage Cash Cow and ArcaVindi, the go‑to place for giving pre‑loved items a new lease of life. As we scale rapidly across the UK and Europe, AI‑optimised discovery (AIO) and SEO are becoming increasingly critical growth levers, helping customers find us earlier, more often, and with higher intent. Organic search and AI‑driven discovery at Vintage Cash Cow are built on a clear underlying foundation of demand, with significant untapped potential. This role exists to unlock the next phase of growth by turning underperforming non‑brand organic demand, content, and technical foundations into a scalable, high‑impact acquisition engine.

About the role: As our SEO / AIO Lead, you will own the hands‑on execution and strategic evolution of SEO and AI‑optimised discovery across Vintage Cash Cow and ArcaVindi. Reporting into the Growth Director, you will drive technical SEO, AIO optimisation, prioritisation, and content strategy, working closely with Product, Tech, Data, and Content to deliver measurable, incremental growth. This is a foundational build role. We are looking for someone who has launched or rebooted SEO in environments without mature legacy processes, and is comfortable creating structure where none exists. You will define standards, build documentation, establish reporting frameworks, and embed SEO best practice into product and content workflows from the ground up. This role is designed for a self‑sufficient operator who thrives in ambiguity and operates end‑to‑end: identifying opportunity, setting direction, building process, and translating strategy into action at pace. You will have clear ownership, autonomy, and accountability for SEO / AIO performance, with the mandate to influence roadmaps and priorities across teams. Your work will directly impact non‑brand traffic, acquisition efficiency, conversion quality, and long‑term growth. As the business continues to scale, this role has significant opportunity to expand in scope and influence. This is a rare opportunity to build and scale the SEO / AIO engine within a high‑growth consumer brand, not simply optimise it.

First phase focus:

• Audit current SEO and AIO performance across technical foundations, content, and non‑brand demand
• Identify priority opportunities where Vintage Cash Cow already ranks but underperforms on clicks, visibility, or AI surfaces
• Establish a clear SEO / AIO prioritisation framework aligned to business impact
• Partner closely with Product and Tech through major platform and CMS changes to ensure SEO best practice is embedded
• Define clear success metrics across traffic, rankings, CTR, and downstream performance

Driving Excellence in SEO & AIO: This role is accountable for elevating SEO and AI‑optimised discovery into a high‑impact, scalable growth channel for Vintage Cash Cow. The SEO / AIO Lead will focus on:

• Building a clear, prioritised SEO / AIO roadmap aligned to commercial impact
• Ensuring technical and content foundations are robust, scalable, and future‑proof
• Embedding SEO and AIO best practice into product, platform, and content workflows
• Adapting our organic acquisition strategy as search and AI‑driven discovery evolve
• Driving continuous improvement through testing, learning, and performance insight

Success in this role is measured not just by rankings, but by incremental non‑brand growth, acquisition efficiency, and contribution to wider business objectives.

Key Goals & Objectives:

• Drive measurable growth in non‑brand organic traffic, leads and AI‑driven discovery
• Improve visibility, CTR, and performance of existing keyword and content foundations
• Ensure SEO best practice is embedded into product, platform, and content workflows
• Establish SEO / AIO as a core, scalable lead and revenue growth lever at Vintage Cash Cow
• Support incremental revenue and acquisition efficiency through scalable organic growth

Key Responsibilities:

Own the SEO / AIO strategy and roadmap across the UK and international markets, plus multi‑language technical setup, aligned to growth goals and customer needs. Build and maintain a clear prioritisation framework that balances technical foundations, content opportunities, and commercial impact. Identify high‑impact opportunities across non‑brand demand (rankings, CTR, content gaps) and translate them into an executable plan. Define success metrics and ensure stakeholders are aligned on what “good” looks like (traffic, visibility, rankings, CTR, conversions, and incremental value).

Lead technical SEO delivery across crawlability, indexation, internal linking, site architecture, redirects, structured data/schema, metadata, and page performance fundamentals. Partner closely with Product and Engineering to embed SEO requirements into releases, QA, and platform decisions. Support and guide SEO best practice during platform changes (including migrations), ensuring risks are managed and improvements are shipped. Maintain technical hygiene through audits, monitoring, and issue triage (e.g. index bloat, duplication, thin content, canonicalisation).

Partner with Content to develop a scalable SEO / AIO content strategy (pillars, clusters, templates) mapped to user intent and business priorities. Optimise existing and new content for performance: including on‑page structure (H1–H3), internal linking, metadata, entity coverage, FAQs, and AI‑readiness. Help establish consistent expert‑led signals (author profiles, expert attribution, review processes) to strengthen trust and E‑E‑A‑T across priority topics. Work with stakeholders to ensure content is accurate, brand‑aligned, and built for long‑term compounding organic growth.

Ensure content and technical foundations are optimised for emerging AI discovery surfaces (LLMs, AI summaries/answers, rich results, Answer Engine Optimisation) alongside traditional SEO. Track shifts in search and AI behaviour, identify risks and opportunities, and translate insights into practical changes across content and technical foundations. Champion best practices for AIO across the business, ensuring we evolve with the landscape.

Establish reporting and monitoring for SEO / AIO performance, surfacing opportunities, risks, and wins clearly and regularly. Build a testing and optimisation cadence to improve rankings, CTR, engagement, and conversion quality over time. Quantify incremental impact where possible (especially non‑brand growth), and communicate progress in a stakeholder‑friendly way. Continuously improve ways of working (templates, checklists, workflows, QA) to scale output without compromising quality.

Collaborate with Product, Engineering, Data, CRM, Brand, and Performance Marketing to ensure SEO / AIO is integrated into the broader growth system. Act as the internal subject‑matter expert for SEO / AIO, raising standards and capability across teams through guidance and best practice. Establish lightweight governance (standards, documentation, QA checks) so SEO / AIO execution is scalable, consistent, and reliable.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise:

• Strong hands‑on SEO experience (typically 5–10+ years), including experience building or rebooting SEO within a high‑growth consumer or marketplace environment.
• This role is ideal for someone who:

• Has built SEO foundations from scratch or successfully reset underperforming channels
• Enjoys operating independently and thrives in ambiguity
• Is commercially focused — thinking beyond rankings to revenue, conversion, and LTV
• Wants ownership over performance outcomes, not just execution

Key capabilities:

• Proven ability to independently own technical SEO strategy, prioritisation, and delivery
• Deep expertise across on‑page, technical SEO, and content optimisation
• Strong understanding of emerging AI‑driven discovery (e.g. AI Overviews, generative search) and how SEO strategy must adapt
• Hands‑on experience setting up, managing, and extracting insight from SEO tool stacks (e.g. SEMrush, Ahrefs, Moz), including tracking frameworks and reporting
• Strong analytical capability — comfortable turning data into clear commercial priorities
• Experience partnering closely with Product and Engineering teams to ship SEO improvements
• Solid understanding of schema, structured data, and advanced SERP features
• Experience working with modern CMS platforms (e.g. Webflow)
• Experience operating SEO across multiple markets and multi‑languages technical setup