Director of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & AI Visibility

About Kind Creative

Kind Creative is a mission-driven marketing agency dedicated to elevating healthcare companies through data-driven, transparent, and altruistic digital marketing strategies. Our work helps healthcare providers connect with the people who need them most — often during critical, life-changing moments. We specialize in behavioral health, addiction treatment, and purpose-driven healthcare spaces where empathy, trust, and clarity are non-negotiable.

At Kind, we’re not just marketers — we’re collaborators, builders, and advocates for better outcomes. We believe great marketing starts with understanding people. That’s why we lead with empathy, strategy, and creative courage — crafting campaigns that not only perform, but resonate.

Our culture is deeply people-first, both in the way we serve our clients and in how we support our team. We value curiosity, integrity, and kindness as much as we value performance. We’re a remote-friendly, growth-focused team that believes in healthy boundaries, open communication, and doing work that genuinely matters.

If you’re looking for a place where impact meets intention, where your ideas will be heard, and where you’ll help reshape how healthcare brands connect with their communities — we’d love to meet you.

Director of SEO Position Overview

Kind Creative is seeking a strategic, hands-on Director of SEO to lead our organic search department and drive measurable growth for our clients. This is a player-coach role: the Director will set the department’s vision, manage and develop the SEO team, own client relationships, and remain directly involved in high-level strategy, analysis, and execution.

The Director will oversee both traditional search engine optimization and the rapidly evolving field of AI-driven organic discovery, including AI Overviews, conversational search, answer engines, large language models, and other emerging platforms that influence how people find, evaluate, and select brands.

This person will help evolve Kind Creative into a technology-first SEO agency by creating scalable services, standardized workflows, intelligent automation, and repeatable strategies that produce strong client outcomes. The responsibilities of this role will continue to evolve as search technology, client needs, and the agency grow.

Who Will Thrive in This Role

This role is likely to be a strong fit for someone who:

• Enjoys being both a department leader and a hands-on SEO strategist.
• Thinks in terms of business outcomes rather than rankings alone.
• Can move comfortably between client strategy, technical analysis, team coaching, and operational planning.
• Is curious about AI-driven search while remaining appropriately skeptical of hype and unsupported claims.
• Creates structure in a growing environment and follows through on the systems they introduce.
• Communicates proactively, especially when performance is changing, expectations are unclear, or an account may be at risk.
• Takes ownership of results and raises risks early.
• Can prioritize high-impact work instead of treating every request as equally urgent.
• Values documentation, process consistency, accurate task management, and quality assurance.
• Gives clear feedback, develops others, and welcomes informed disagreement.
• Collaborates well across disciplines and can translate between technical, creative, and business teams.
• Is energized by building a department, not merely maintaining one.

Who May Not Do Well in This Role

This role is unlikely to be a good fit for someone who:

• Prefers individual execution and does not enjoy coaching, delegating, reviewing work, or holding a team accountable.
• Focuses primarily on rankings or traffic without connecting performance to leads, conversions, revenue, and client objectives.
• Avoids difficult client conversations or waits for problems to escalate before communicating them.
• Chases every new AI or SEO trend without evaluating evidence, risk, scalability, or business value.
• Is resistant to AI, automation, or changes in how people discover information online.
• Relies on AI-generated work without careful review, fact-checking, and professional judgment.
• Struggles with documentation, task ownership, process adherence, or maintaining accurate project-management systems.
• Prefers a highly established environment in which responsibilities, processes, and service offerings rarely change.
• Has difficulty balancing strategic priorities with deadlines, capacity constraints, and operational details.
• Works primarily within departmental silos or struggles to collaborate with content, development, paid media, sales, and analytics teams.
• Is uncomfortable being accountable for client satisfaction, team performance, delivery quality, and department growth.

Key Responsibilities SEO and Organic Search Leadership

• Own and develop comprehensive organic search strategies across client accounts, aligning recommendations with each client’s business goals, growth priorities, audience, and success metrics.
• Establish the strategic direction of the SEO department and ensure that client work reflects current best practices across technical SEO, content, authority building, local search, user experience, and conversion.
• Conduct and oversee SEO audits, competitive analyses, keyword and topic research, opportunity assessments, and performance reviews.
• Translate complex search data into clear priorities, practical recommendations, and compelling client narratives.
• Monitor search engine updates, emerging technologies, competitive developments, and changes in user search behavior.
• Partner with company leadership to position SEO and organic discovery as central components of Kind Creative’s service offering and long-term growth.

AI and Emerging Organic Discovery

• Develop and continually refine strategies for visibility in AI-mediated search experiences, including AI Overviews, answer engines, conversational search tools, and large language model responses.
• Help clients build the technical clarity, topical authority, entity recognition, structured information, trustworthy content, and third-party validation needed to compete across both traditional and AI-driven discovery.
• Evaluate how clients and competitors are represented, cited, summarized, and recommended in emerging AI search environments.
• Develop practical methods for measuring AI search visibility, referral activity, brand mentions, citations, assisted conversions, and other meaningful indicators as the available measurement tools evolve.
• Ensure that AI search initiatives remain grounded in strong SEO fundamentals, reliable information, audience needs, and measurable business outcomes.
• Identify responsible uses of generative AI, agents, and automation throughout the department while maintaining human review, factual accuracy, brand integrity, data security, and HIPAA-aware processes where applicable.
• Educate clients, team members, and leadership on changes in AI-driven search without relying on hype or presenting unproven tactics as established best practices.

Client Strategy, Service, and Retention

• Serve as the strategic lead for assigned SEO clients. Long term goal is for you to build the team and sit in a Director revolve vs staying in client delivery.
• Lead client calls and ensure clients understand their strategy, progress, risks, and next steps.
• Maintain a proactive communication rhythm that strengthens client confidence, satisfaction, and retention.
• Identify performance issues, communication gaps, and other signs of account risk early, then develop and implement corrective action plans.
• Identify opportunities to expand client engagements when additional SEO or cross-department services would meaningfully support the client’s goals.
• Balance client expectations with available resources, technical realities, and responsible timelines.
• Maintain a hands-on understanding of each client’s work rather than operating solely as a high-level relationship manager.

Technical, On-Page, and Off-Page SEO

• Oversee keyword research, search-intent analysis, content optimization, internal linking, digital authority building, local SEO, and user-experience recommendations.
• Ensure client websites follow best practices for architecture, crawling, rendering, indexing, canonicalization, redirects, structured data, Core Web Vitals, page speed, and mobile usability.
• Work closely with developers to scope, prioritize, implement, and verify technical recommendations.
• Diagnose indexing, visibility, traffic, engagement, and conversion issues using reliable data from platforms such as Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Ahrefs, Semrush, and relevant crawling and content tools.
• Conduct regular quality-control reviews and ensure recommendations comply with search engine guidelines.
• Maintain awareness of privacy, security, accessibility, and HIPAA considerations that may affect SEO strategy, analytics, content, tracking, and client engagements.

Content Strategy

• Partner with the content team to build strategies informed by search demand, audience needs, business objectives, competitive gaps, and the client’s subject-matter expertise.
• Ensure content briefs and recommendations clearly address search intent, topical coverage, brand differentiation, conversion goals, and opportunities for both traditional and AI-driven discovery.
• Help clients create useful, accurate, original content that demonstrates genuine experience and expertise.
• Coordinate content refreshes, consolidation, pruning, and expansion based on performance and strategic value.

Analytics, Reporting, and Accountability

• Define the KPIs that matter for each client and connect SEO activity to qualified traffic, leads, conversions, revenue, visibility, and other business outcomes.
• Develop and maintain scalable reporting systems, automated alerts, dashboards, and regular performance reviews.
• Monitor organic visibility, rankings, click-through rates, engagement, conversions, technical health, AI visibility, and other relevant leading and lagging indicators.
• Partner with paid media and attribution teams to ensure organic search data is captured, integrated, and interpreted accurately.
• Distinguish meaningful performance changes from normal volatility and communicate the difference clearly.
• Maintain accountability for results while recognizing when outcomes depend on client approvals, development resources, market conditions, or other external factors.

Team Leadership and Development

• Hire, onboard, train, coach, and retain a high-performing SEO team.
• Build a culture of strategic thinking, curiosity, accuracy, collaboration, accountability, and psychological safety.
• Lead recurring SEO team meetings and cross-department planning sessions.
• Set clear expectations, review work, provide actionable feedback, and create advancement opportunities for high-potential team members.
• Ensure the team stays current on SEO, AI systems, analytics, industry developments, client-specific requirements, and HIPAA considerations.
• Balance team capacity and utilization to prevent bottlenecks, missed deadlines, and unsustainable workloads.
• Ensure deliverables are accurate, actionable, and client-ready before they are presented or implemented.

Operations and Process Management

• Standardize repeatable workflows for audits, keyword research, content briefs, technical recommendations, 90-day plans, monthly reporting, implementation reviews, and client communication.
• Ensure SEO work is properly scoped, prioritized, assigned, tracked, and maintained in ClickUp.
• Maintain a healthy backlog in which work reflects the approved strategy, dependencies are visible, priorities remain current, and outdated or unowned tasks do not accumulate.
• Build and maintain an internal knowledge base containing SOPs, playbooks, industry updates, client context, quality standards, and lessons learned.
• Improve team throughput and operational efficiency without compromising accuracy, strategy, client care, or work quality.
• Resolve cross-functional dependencies that could delay deliverables or affect client outcomes.

Service Development and Agency Growth

• Define and document Kind Creative’s SEO-related service offerings and SKUs.
• Establish initial time estimates, deliverables, ownership, and success criteria for each offering.
• Use accurate time-tracking and delivery data to improve forecasting, pricing, staffing, and profitability.
• Support the sales team with discovery, opportunity evaluation, scoping, audits, attribution planning, and initial and ongoing 90-day plans.
• Forecast staffing and resource needs based on client commitments, department capacity, and planned growth.
• Oversee SEO budgets for client and internal initiatives, allocating resources according to expected impact.
• Collaborate with sales, development, content, paid media, attribution, and internal marketing teams.
• Support SEO for Kind Creative’s own website and marketing initiatives so the agency’s presence reflects the quality of its client work.
• Identify opportunities to build or adopt software, integrations, agents, and automation that make SEO delivery more effective and scalable.
• Lead the testing, rollout, documentation, and adoption of approved technologies.

Measures of Success

Success in this role will be evaluated through a balanced set of client, team, operational, and business outcomes, including:

• Organic visibility, qualified traffic, leads, conversions, and client-specific business results.
• Client satisfaction, retention, communication quality, and early resolution of account risks.
• Progress in AI-driven organic visibility and the development of credible measurement practices.
• On-time delivery and predictable completion of SEO commitments.
• Quality-control performance, accuracy, and reduction of avoidable rework.
• Sustainable team utilization, capacity planning, engagement, and retention.
• Adoption of SOPs, ClickUp workflows, reporting standards, and automation.
• Backlog quality, prioritization, and delivery readiness.
• Effective resolution of cross-department dependencies.
• Completion of quarterly and annual strategic initiatives.
• Development of scalable, clearly defined, and financially sound SEO offerings.
• Responsible adoption of tools and automation that improve efficiency or client impact.

Qualifications and Capabilities

The strongest candidates will bring:

• Significant hands-on experience developing and executing SEO strategies for multiple clients, brands, or business units.
• Strong knowledge of technical SEO, content strategy, analytics, local search, authority building, and conversion-focused optimization.
• An informed understanding of AI-driven search and the ways organic discovery is expanding beyond traditional search results.
• Experience leading people, reviewing work, developing processes, and improving team performance.
• Confidence communicating with clients, executives, developers, content specialists, sales teams, and other stakeholders.
• The ability to connect technical and marketing activity to meaningful business outcomes.
• Experience with Google Search Console, Google Analytics, crawling platforms, keyword and competitive research tools, reporting systems, and project-management software.
• Sound judgment about when to automate, when human expertise is essential, and how to evaluate AI-generated outputs.
• Strong prioritization, documentation, quality-control, and operational-management skills.
• The ability to manage competing demands without allowing communication, accuracy, or follow-through to deteriorate.
• Comfort working in a growing agency where responsibilities, systems, and service offerings will continue to evolve.

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: $110,000.00 - $135,000.00 per year

Application Question(s):

• What is your most recent random act of kindness?
• What’s a recent decision you made that you’re proud of, and what did you learn from it?
• How would you align the SEO team with Paid Media, CRO, and Content teams to hit business-level goals?
• How quickly would you be able to start at Kind Creative?
• What’s your take on the current role of AI in SEO and what will separate great SEOs from average ones over the next 2 years?

Work Location: Remote