AI Search and SEO Lead

Our Digital Experience team are recruiting for an AI Search & SEO Lead to join them on a permanent basis. Reporting to our Head of Digital Experience, you’ll be tasked with planning and maintaining an integrated optimisation strategy across SEO, GEO, AEO and AIO, to maximise discoverability of our Penguin digital estate.

This role will suit someone who already has solid experience as a SEO Analyst or Lead and is curious, analytically minded and with the ability to adapt to the rapidly evolving search landscape.

About The Department

The Digital Experience team sits within the Brand department which houses a number of central areas of specialist expertise which support and work closely with our nine publishing houses to connect our books and authors with readers. The department, made up of around 70 people, includes experts from digital marketing, brand, communications, consumer insights and more.

The iconic Penguin brand – the only consumer-facing brand in publishing – sits at the heart of what we do. We have an exciting opportunity to leverage the power of our brand to help new and different readers discover our books and to champion the causes we care about.

The Role

You will build and maintain systems, protocols and performance indicators in line with our Brand principles, to ensure our content and platforms across our owned channels are optimised to create a seamless user experience.

Some Of Your Responsibilities Include:

• Planning and maintaining an integrated SEO strategy in collaboration with our Head of Digital Experience, encompassing SEO, GEO, AEO and AIO.
• Defining technical, content and AI-specific optimisation best practices, collaborating with our content, product and development teams to implement relevant updates.
• Guiding content creators in structuring pages and assets for both human and AI readability.
• Implementing URL, taxonomy, structured data, redirection, content, canonical and AI retrievability strategies.
• Setting SEO priorities and targets for all Penguin properties based on commercial opportunities and AI ecosystem impact.
• Performing keyword and prompt-oriented research, incorporating semantic and persona-based approaches that benefit both traditional and AI systems.
• Owning and maintaining SEO performance dashboards and prepare research and reports to share back key findings with internal stakeholders.
• Staying up to date with search and AI trends; testing emerging tools and techniques that boost discoverability in generative and answer-based platforms
• Collaborating cross-functionally to create and refine experiences designed for AI consumption – search, chatbots, voice experiences, and more.

What You’Ll Bring

Essential Criteria:

• Significant experience as an SEO Lead or Manager, ideally in digital-first or content-heavy environments.
• Proven success in SEO best practises and development.
• Expertise with web analytics and SEO tools including SEMRush, Moz, Ahrefs and Google Search Console and Adobe Analytics.
• An understanding of emerging AI-powered search technologies (e.g. Google SGE, Bing Copilot, ChatGPT browsing).
• Working knowledge of GEO, AEO and AIO practices.
• Familiarity with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Google Data Studio.
• Strong analytical skills; capable of interpreting both traditional SEO metrics and new AI search signals.
• Be a critical thinker and problem solver with strong communication and collaboration skills.
• The ability and willingness to commit to our hybrid working model (below).

Applications Instructions

Please apply with your CV and Cover Letter outlining why you are the right candidate for the role by 11:59pm on 14th October 2025.

Please ensure you include a cover letter, as it is a crucial part of our assessment process. The cover letter offers an opportunity to show how your experience and interests align with the role requirements. Typically, we expect the cover letter to be no more than one or two pages in length.

Please note we are looking for someone to join the team as soon as possible, but we are also happy to accommodate a reasonable notice period for the right candidate.

Salary

The salary for this opportunity is upwards of c.£40,000, depending on how your skills and experience align to the role, plus a generous bonus scheme and benefits.

Our Approach To Hybrid Working:

While our offices are places for you to connect, collaborate and celebrate with colleagues, we recognise that flexibility around where you work is just as important For this role we expect that you will be in our Embassy Gardens, London office a minimum of two days per week (typically Tuesday & Thursday).

The recruitment process: You can read about our recruitment process at https://www.penguinrandomhousecareers.co.uk/how-we-hire/

As a Disability Confident Committed organisation, we're part of the offer an interview scheme. This is where disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role can opt in to get to the next recruitment stage. There may be some situations where volume of applicants means we can't take all eligible candidates to interview.

We encourage you to tell us about any reasonable adjustments you may need by emailing PRHCareersUK@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk. Remember, you only need to share what you are comfortable to for us to support your request.

Please note, we are not able to accept agency CVs for this role. Any CVs sent speculatively will not be eligible for a fee.

 Company: The Random House Group Limited | Job ID: 283230