Search Experience and Technical SEO Manager (Contract)

Job Title: Search Experience and Technical SEO Manager (Contract)
Location: Toronto, Canada

Duration: 12 months with potential to extend.

*This role is Hybrid and will require 2x per week from our Toronto, ON. office

About OpenTable:

With millions of diners, 60,000+ restaurant partners and 25+ years of experience, OpenTable, part of Booking Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: BKNG), is an industry leader with a passion for helping restaurants thrive. Our world-class technology empowers restaurants to focus on what matters most – their team, their guests, and their bottom line – while enabling diners to discover and book the perfect restaurant for every occasion. 

Every employee at OpenTable has a tangible impact on what we do and how we do it. You’ll also be part of a global team and its portfolio of metasearch brands. Hospitality is all about taking care of others, and it defines our culture.

About the Role: 

The search landscape is undergoing a generational shift from traditional Search Engines to AI-driven Answer Engines. We are looking for a hybrid Technical SEO and Search Experience Specialist to drive user acquisition and lead generation for our OpenTable for Restaurants B2B website, seamlessly bridging the gap between high-level organic strategy and hands-on technical execution.

In this contractor role, you will be responsible for defining our B2B organic discovery strategy across traditional SERPs and emerging AI environments, including Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. Strategy is only half the battle: you will be actively executing on-page optimizations to convert search visibility into qualified merchant leads, while directly managing our technical SEO roadmap alongside our web development team.

If you are a self-motivated expert who loves driving measurable business growth but is equally excited to dig into crawl reports, write technical dev tickets, and implement schema markup, this role is for you.

What you will do:

1. Core and Traditional Search Strategy

• Keyword Strategy and User Intent: Conduct deep keyword research, competitor gap analyses, and search intent mapping to identify high-intent, funnel opportunities.

• Content Clustering and Architecture: Define and execute a robust traditional content strategy, utilizing topical authority building, content hubs, and pillar-cluster models aligned with the customer buyer journey.

• On-Page SEO Optimization: Ensure all existing and new landing pages, blogs, and resource hubs are fully optimized for traditional Google search, including featured snippets, heading structures, and metadata.

• SERP and Competitor Surveillance: Monitor daily keyword rankings and search engine results page volatility to quickly identify and react to competitor movements or search algorithm updates.

• Content Decay Management: Identify historical content that is losing search visibility and execute optimization plans to refresh and reclaim rankings.

• Authority and Link Strategies: Develop and recommend white-hat backlink acquisition frameworks and internal linking structures to improve baseline domain authority and page-level performance.

2. Next-Generation Search Strategy (AEO / GEO / AIO)

• AI Ecosystem Visibility: Design and execute strategies to maximize our brand's citations, brand mentions, and sentiment within LLM chatbots and generative summaries.

• Entity and Machine Interpretability: Identify ways to strengthen our digital footprint and knowledge graph signals, instructing content resources on how to optimize for semantic search and conversational user intent.

• AI-Assisted Workflows: Leverage generative AI tools to accelerate day-to-day execution tasks, such as generating structured data blocks, drafting initial metadata options, and analyzing large keyword datasets.

3. Technical SEO Management

• Developer Bridging: Translate complex SEO, AEO, and GEO technical requirements into clear, actionable development briefs (such as Jira tickets) for our web engineering team.

• Technical Quality Assurance: Partner closely with developers to test, validate, and support the implementation of technical fixes, ensuring they do not impact site performance or user experience.

• Search Console Oversight: Take daily ownership of Google Search Console alerts, triaging and resolving issues related to indexation, mobile usability, and 404 errors before they impact performance.

• Site Architecture and Performance: Lead technical audits focused on crawlability, indexation health, site speed (Core Web Vitals), and rendering best practices.

4. Hands-on Execution and WordPress Optimization

• Website Implementation: Take hands-on ownership of our website’s backend and SEO configuration. You will directly execute on-page updates, internal linking overhauls, metadata adjustments, and URL redirects.

• Advanced Schema Implementation: Build, test, and deploy structured data (Schema.org) frameworks to make our site highly interpretable for both traditional search crawlers and AI web scrapers.

5. Analytics and Performance Tracking

• Business Impact Reporting: Build and maintain performance dashboards. Connect search traffic, visibility metrics, and AI citations directly to lead generation, pipeline, and business revenue.

• Pipeline Attribution: Look past vanity traffic metrics to connect search visibility and AI citations directly to lead generation, form completions, pipeline, and business revenue.

What you bring to the table:

• Experience: 4 to 6 years of hands-on experience in SEO and organic growth roles, with a proven track record of managing visibility for B2B or lead-generation websites.

• Technical Literacy: Solid understanding of technical SEO principles, including crawlability, indexation health, XML sitemaps, Core Web Vitals, and structured data implementation using Schema.org frameworks.

• Developer Collaboration: Proven experience partnering directly with web development and engineering teams, including the ability to write clear technical briefs and translate SEO needs into actionable developer tasks.

• Tool Proficiency: Expert-level command of SEMrush, Google Search Console, and Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Regular experience using website crawling tools like Screaming Frog is highly valued.

• AI Search Awareness: Strong familiarity with the evolving AI search landscape, including a practical understanding of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), and how LLMs source information.

• Website Management: Comfortable navigating website backends to independently execute on-page optimizations, metadata updates, internal linking overhauls, and redirect management.

• Analytical Mindset: Ability to translate raw data into actionable insights, with a strong focus on connecting search performance directly to business metrics like lead generation, form completions, and pipeline.

• Contractor Autonomy: A self-motivated operator with excellent time management skills, capable of prioritizing a backlog of technical and strategy tasks and executing with minimal oversight.

Benefits:

Benefits of this role will be discussed during the interview process. 

The expected range of compensation for this position based in Toronto, Canada, is $35 - $45 CAD Per Hour. There are a variety of factors that go into determining a compensation range, including but not limited to external market benchmark data, geographic location, and years of experience sought/required.

Work Environment & Flexibility

At OpenTable, we pride ourselves on fostering a global and dynamic work environment. As a team member with us, you will benefit from a schedule tailored to accommodate a global workforce operating across multiple time zones. While the majority of your responsibilities may align with conventional business hours, there will be instances where you are expected to manage communications - via calls, Slack messages, or emails - outside of regular working hours to effectively collaborate with international colleagues, respond to restaurant partners, and/or address urgent matters. OpenTable will always abide by and consider local laws and regulations.

Inclusion

We’re committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels they belong and can thrive. We know the best ideas come when we bring different voices to the table, so we're building a team as dynamic as the diners and restaurants we serve—and fostering a culture where everyone feels welcome to be themselves.

If you need accommodations during the application or interview process, or on the job, we’re here to support you. Please reach out to your recruiter to request any accommodations.

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