Senior SEO and AI Search Strategist

Virayo is hiring a Senior SEO and AI Search Strategist. Remote, US-based, $120-140k

This is our second strategist seat. You'd own a book of B2B SaaS accounts, paired with an account manager, with three writers executing against your strategy.

What's different about Virayo from most agencies is that we're engineering-led. As a strategist, you'll have Virayo AI answering questions about our clients on demand. VAI crawls sites, tracks rankings and prompts, and audits how the models describe each brand, continuously, on every account. The data is exposed through MCP, so you can work from Claude or agents of your own.

Your time goes to strategy, the client, and the judgment calls no agent can make. Our GEO framework is still being written as we analyze data, test, and iterate. You'd join and help us author it.

Our team is seven people. About 30 paid days off in your first year. No one here works crazy schedules, and I don't think good strategy comes out of that.

Posted by: Jarod Ferguson, CEO

Position

Full-time (remote), US-based

Salary

$120,000 to $140,000

Benefits

Medical, dental, vision, 401(k), and 30 paid days off in your first year

The Position

We are seeking a senior-level AI Search Strategist (Generative/Answer Engine Optimization) to lead the development and execution of strategies to achieve visibility within AI Overviews (AIOs) and Large Language Models (LLMs), such as Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude.

This role is both strategic and client-facing. You will serve as the primary point of contact for a portfolio of B2B SaaS brands and be responsible for measurable business results, increasing the likelihood that our clients' authoritative content is retrieved, mentioned, and cited across generative search platforms. To succeed here, you must be skilled at conducting in-depth research, identifying new GEO/AEO opportunities, and translating insights into clear, actionable strategies focused on content strategy, structured data, and digital PR. You will communicate these strategies directly to clients, lead calls, and provide regular performance updates.

You will not do this alone. An account manager is paired with you across the book, our writers execute against your strategy, and Virayo AI handles the recurring crawling, monitoring, and competitive analysis. Your time goes to interpretation, client leadership, and the judgment calls automation cannot make.

This role requires a high level of autonomy. You will continuously use industry research, competitive analysis, and generative engine testing to refine and evolve strategies. Each quarter, you will build and present a QBR deck alongside your account manager, outlining performance and strategic recommendations, including the brand's performance in LLM-driven search results.

You must have expert-level, hands-on SEO experience, including technical site audits, keyword research, internal linking, backlink analysis, and close collaboration with content teams to build content roadmaps that align with core business goals.

You will be accountable for both the client relationship and the engagement results.

About Virayo

We are a B2B SaaS AI search agency. Virayo spun out as its own company in 2018, though the founding team has worked together since 2012.

Seven people. You will be our second strategist, working directly with our co-founders. You will be paired with an account manager across your book, and three writers carry production, so your time stays on strategy. This is a new seat, and we are expanding.

Our clients are niche vertical category leaders: B2B SaaS companies between $20M and $250M in revenue, usually 100 to 1,000 employees with a decade or more in market.

Virayo AI

Virayo AI is our platform, and as a strategist here, you run on it. One agent, three layers, working a weekly loop on every account. It crawls the site and tracks rankings, audits how four LLMs describe the brand both with and without web retrieval, and guides content creation against quality gates. Each layer feeds the next. A closed loop, not a dashboard.

The audit work that eats most of a strategist's week is already done when you sit down. Beyond that, you can ask it anything about an account and get an answer back. How visibility is trending against a named competitor. Which pages lost clicks this week. Where the citation gaps sit and what to do about them. Strategy reports, competitive maps, and buyer insights come back as a first analytical pass for you to validate and turn into decisions.

Every signal is exposed through MCP, so you can work from Claude, ChatGPT, or agents of your own. Clients log into the same platform.

Your time goes to strategy, the client, and the judgment calls the agent cannot make.

The GEO framework we run on every client is still being written. You will help write it, and you will have a direct line to the team building Virayo AI.

Core Responsibilities

• Own client results and relationships from start to finish. This includes strategy, planning, and execution.
• Use client feedback, competitive analysis, and industry research to develop custom SEO and GEO strategies that generate pipeline for SaaS companies.
• Adjust strategy when performance goals are not being met.
• Follow and quickly adapt to developments in generative search and LLMs to maintain and grow client visibility.
• Develop and execute strategies to optimize content for direct citation in AI Overviews and LLM responses.
• Design and manage prompt-testing frameworks to benchmark and track client visibility in major generative search platforms.
• Analyze query fan-out to understand what an engine searches for behind a single user prompt, and close the visibility gaps it exposes.
• Identify factual inaccuracies models state about your clients, trace them to the cited sources reproducing the claim, and drive the correction.
• Develop quarterly keyword and content roadmaps that tie back to business objectives.
• Advise on content priorities and align them with each funnel stage to generate pipeline.
• Perform comprehensive content and data audits, providing actionable recommendations for structured data, semantic relevance, and knowledge graph contribution.
• Review content and provide actionable on-page recommendations.
• Audit internal link profiles and recommend placements and anchor text.
• Perform digital authority analysis, incorporating traditional link analysis, and provide strategic targets for high-value citation and digital PR initiatives.
• Work with client engineering teams on site architecture, structured data implementation, and crawl access for traditional bots and AI agents.
• Analyze website performance and use data to make informed decisions.
• Clearly communicate strategy and confidently address client questions.
• Ensure deliverables are being met on time.
• Contribute to internal SEO and GEO frameworks, playbooks, and training resources that improve team-wide performance.
• Exhibit executive-level professionalism. You will interact primarily with CMOs, VPs, and Heads of Marketing.

What Success Looks Like

Six months in, you are running your full book. Every account transitioned, QBRs delivered with your account manager, and each client clear on how we measure their results.

Average visibility and mention rate up across your whole portfolio. Demos booked, and opportunities closed on the client side. Those are the tangible numbers that tell us the work is landing, and they are what we hold ourselves to.

Required Skills and Experience

• 5+ years of experience building successful SEO strategies in an agency role, particularly for SaaS and technology companies.
• You can provide examples of SEO strategies that helped companies meet or exceed pipeline targets.
• You can provide examples of GEO strategies that helped companies increase visibility in LLMs for priority prompts.
• Senior-level experience with technical, on-page, and off-page SEO. You can do the work yourself.
• Experience building prompt sets, sampling results, checking responses and citations, and interpreting what they actually tell you.
• Comfortable using AI tools like Claude to work through data, pressure-test strategy, and turn analysis into prioritized recommendations and growth opportunities, while knowing where the tool's output needs your judgment.
• A practical grasp of how AI search selects and cites sources. How a query gets decomposed, why one page gets cited when a better-ranking one does not, and how you would measure any of it.
• You own client relationships as the lead. This includes running meetings, delivering presentations, and advancing projects. It also includes the uncomfortable parts: managing a client through a down quarter, handling pushback on your recommendations, and resetting expectations without losing the room.
• You can turn analysis into a prioritized set of recommendations, each tied to a business goal, with its expected impact and the effort required, and you can defend the sequencing.
• You work effectively in a fully remote environment.
• Executive-level presentation skills.

Preferred Skills

• Server log analysis for AI crawler behavior, including whether GPTBot and ClaudeBot are fetching a client's content.
• Demonstrated expertise in structured data (Schema markup, JSON-LD) and Knowledge Graph best practices.
• Proven experience developing or contributing to digital PR strategies aimed at increasing high-authority, citable mentions.
• Experience with Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, Surfer SEO, Search Console, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Looker Studio.

Please Do Not Apply To This Position If You

• Are not US-based.
• Do not have experience working in an agency role.
• Are not comfortable being held accountable for client results.
• Would require assistance to put together a detailed SEO/GEO strategy for a client.
• Cannot communicate how an SEO/GEO strategy supports business objectives.
• Cannot share examples of successful SEO/GEO strategies you have developed.
• Do not have senior-level hands-on SEO/GEO experience.
• Are not comfortable preparing for and running client calls.

What You Will Get With Virayo

• Small, nimble team. We are a remote team focused on quality, speed, and agility. There is no hiding here. Everyone takes full ownership of their work and is 100% accountable.
• Support. Starting a fully remote job can be tough, but we will be there for you. We will help you acclimate to your new role in your first 90 days, and you will get to know everyone on the team.
• Trust. We hire people we believe in. We will respect your judgment and trust your instincts.
• Room to grow. We are an established agency with a startup mindset. You will help shape our processes, co-author the GEO framework we run on every client, and define how your role grows within the company.
• Diverse work. You may be auditing a global SaaS client's site architecture on Monday, reverse-engineering an AI Overview on Tuesday, and presenting a QBR on Wednesday. No two days are the same at Virayo.
• Results. The strategies you build do not disappear into a void. You will watch them move visibility, mention rate, and pipeline, and you will see clients react.
• Normal hours. Nobody here works 70-hour weeks, and we do not think good strategy comes out of them.
• Time off. 18 days of PTO to start, 22 at year three, 25 at year five. Seven paid holidays. We close the day after Thanksgiving and the week between Christmas and New Year's. About 30 paid days off your first year, and unused days carry over.

The Hiring Process

Apply. Submit a resume and optional cover letter describing why you would like to join our team. We will ask you two scenario questions, which should take about fifteen minutes.

Initial call. If we think you are a good fit, our CEO will reach out for a brief call to make sure the role makes sense for you.

First interview. A call with our Director of Search, so we can learn more about your skills and experience and you can learn more about working at Virayo.

Paid assignment. The assignment will help us understand how you develop and present a custom SEO and GEO strategy for a SaaS business. We pay you for your time.

Tell us how you work. We will ask you to complete a short work-style assessment (we cover the cost). The results are yours to keep, whether or not you join our team. We will also ask you to provide two references.

Final conversation. A last call with our CEO before we make a decision.

Contract signing. We will send an official offer letter with details on salary and benefits. Once you accept, we will send you the documents to sign and prepare you for onboarding.

The Application Questions

1. A B2B SaaS client's organic traffic is down roughly 25% quarter over quarter. They've asked you to explain why on next week's call.

a) Before pulling any reports, what is the first distinction you would try to establish, and why does it change where you look next?

b) How would you diagnose the decline, and how would you present what you find to the client, especially if the honest answer is one they won't want to hear?

2. A client is mentioned regularly in Google AIO responses for core category prompts, but almost never appears in ChatGPT responses for the same queries. What would you check to explain the gap?

Virayo provides equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other status protected by applicable law.