Manager, SEO & GEO

VERSANT is a leading force in news, sports and entertainment - home to iconic and trusted brands that inspire, inform, and delight audiences. Our unique combination of content, technology and services enriches the cultural fabric, igniting passions, sparking conversations, and connecting people to what they love most.

As an independent, publicly traded company, VERSANT brings together powerhouse cable networks - including USA Network, CNBC, MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), Oxygen, E!, SYFY, and Golf Channel - with dynamic digital and direct-to-consumer brands such as Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow, GolfPass, and SportsEngine. Together, these businesses reflect our commitment to delivering exceptional experiences across every screen and service.

VERSANT is an industry-changing media company fueled by innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit. With a strong foundation and a forward-looking vision, VERSANT empowers creativity, embraces change, and drives connection in an ever-evolving world.

The Manager, SEO position will play an integral part of Versant DPV Performance Marketing team executing highly visible SEO campaigns across multiple brands. This position will help lead and manage the strategy, execution, analysis, and optimization of SEO practices across several brands within the Versant DPV portfolio such as Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, Vudu, SportsEngine, GolfNow and GolfPass. This position will work closely with various departments to identify and manage areas of opportunity to grow traffic and optimize towards primary SEO and GEO KPIs. The ideal candidate will bring a strong focus on applying industry best practices and incorporating data-driven strategies across all areas of SE, including GEO and ASO. This position will act as the internal subject-matter expert on SEO, GEO, and AI-driven discovery while being responsible for influencing product, content and marketing decisions to align with SEO/GEO best practices.

This role is also responsible to:

• Develop, lead, and execute organic marketing strategies and roadmap that leverage data driven insights
• Own organic growth strategy across traditional search and AI-driven discovery (Google AI Overviews, LLMs, answer engines).
• Define and evolve GEO best practices to ensure brand visibility and citation in generative responses.
• Partner with Content, Product, and Editorial to ensure content is structured for machine understanding and extraction.
• Establish standards for structured content (schema, summaries, FAQs, entities, metadata) optimized for AI consumption.
• Translate shifts in search behavior (zero-click, AI summaries) into clear priorities and roadmaps that balance traditional SEO and GEO.
• Manage relationships between multiple marketing vendors & freelance partners
• Champion SEO across the organization, ensuring its consideration across marketing and product.
• Work cross-functionally with product, creative, paid, and brand teams to align SEO with companywide business goals and objectives.
• Responsible for growing new user acquisition and hitting core SEO KPIs across properties – including traditional SEO, GEO and ASO.
• Extensive knowledge of current SEO/GEO best practices with strong technical SEO/GEO background experience
• Familiarity with core PPC marketing principles and tools such as Google and Meta Ads
• Experience of search planning fundamentals across Paid and Organic channels.
• Utilize research tools to perform keyword gap analysis to support and prioritize keyword and content strategies.
• Ability to monitor ongoing SEO site health and maintenance reports while translating insights into actionable tasks and projects
• Familiarity with SEO tools (Google Search Console, Lumar, Semrush, Moz, etc.) is a plus
• Ability to lead multiple projects simultaneously with strong prioritization skills
• Champion data-driven testing initiatives to identify opportunities and scale acquisition efficiently
• Develop analysis that provides conclusions into customer behavior and communicates those conclusions clearly with key stakeholders.

Basic Requirements:

• Bachelors’ degree in Marketing or a related field
• A minimum of 4+ years of relevant business experience with strong focus on SEO
• Comprehensive understanding and application of SEO & GEO principles, tools & methodology.
• Excellent analytical, prioritization, organizational, and quantitative skills.
• Proficiency in web analytics tools (e.g. Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics)

Desired Characteristics:

• Familiarity and passion for sports and entertainment industry
• Solid understanding of evolving GEO and AI discovery industry changes.
• Passion for analytics and digital marketing
• A love for SEO and content marketing

Additional Job Requirements 

• Hybrid: This position has been designated as hybrid, generally contributing from the Orlando, FL office, a minimum of three days per week. 
• Travel:  Must be able to travel domestically for business meetings, trainings, and team events as needed.

As part of our selection process, external candidates may be required to attend an in-person interview with a VERSANT Media employee at one of our locations prior to a hiring decision. VERSANT Media's policy is to provide equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, gender identity or expression, age, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, veteran status, membership in the uniformed services, genetic information, or any other basis protected by applicable law.

If you are a qualified individual with a disability or a disabled veteran and require support throughout the application and/or recruitment process as a result of your disability, you have the right to request a reasonable accommodation. You can submit your request to [email protected].

VERSANT Media is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. We include a good faith pay range for each position to comply with applicable state and local pay transparency laws and to promote equity across our organization. Actual compensation will be based on factors such as the candidate's skills, qualifications, experience, and location and may include additional forms of compensation and benefits such as health insurance, retirement plans, paid time off, etc.

VERSANT Media is not accepting unsolicited assistance from search firms for this employment opportunity. All resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at VERSANT via-email, the Internet, or in any form and/or method without a valid written Statement of Work in place for this position from VERSANT's Talent Acquisition team will be deemed the sole property of VERSANT. No fee will be paid in the event the candidate is hired by VERSANT as a result of the referral or through other means.