SEO/GEO Manager

Job description

SEO/GEO MANAGER Harper is an AI-native commercial insurance company in San Francisco. We're not bolting AI onto insurance — we're rebuilding the entire business as software, on a simple bet: turning expert human judgment into compute is one of the largest transitions left to make, and a trillion-dollar industry still run 90% by hand is the place to prove it. We've grown ~100x in the last year and we move at that speed — on-site, in person, long days, very high standards. Almost no one joins Harper for insurance; they join to build the company that replaces how it works. THE ROLE Every small business owner who searches "business insurance" is a potential Harper customer. Right now, most of them don't find us — and you change that. You own Harper's presence across traditional search and the rapidly growing world of AI-powered discovery: Google, Bing, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and every platform where a business owner might ask "what insurance do I need?" This is both an SEO and a GEO challenge — building the content, authority, and structure that makes Harper the default answer everywhere a small business turns for insurance guidance. You're an SEO strategist who understands that the search landscape is changing faster than most playbooks can keep up with. You've mastered the fundamentals — technical SEO, content strategy, link authority — and you're already building fluency in how generative AI surfaces information and what it takes to show up there. You're analytical and creative in equal measure: you can interpret a crawl report and brief a content strategy in the same afternoon. You report to the Head of Marketing and collaborate closely with the content and growth teams. Winning in 6–12 months looks like measurable ranking gains across high-intent keywords, a clear content and authority strategy, and a roadmap for owning the GEO landscape as it matures. WHAT YOU'LL DO - Own search strategy. Develop and execute Harper's end-to-end SEO and GEO strategy — from keyword research and content planning to technical optimization and authority building. - Drive organic visibility. Build and manage programs that increase Harper's rankings across high-intent commercial insurance queries: coverage types, industry-specific terms, and informational searches at every stage of the funnel. - Lead GEO development. Research and execute strategies for improving Harper's visibility in AI-generated answers across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google SGE, and emerging platforms. - Partner with content. Work hand-in-hand with the content team to develop and optimize content that ranks, earns links, and answers the questions small business owners are actually asking. - Manage technical SEO. Audit and maintain site health; work with engineering to implement structured data, crawlability improvements, and performance optimizations that support ranking. - Build measurement and reporting. Track organic performance against traffic, ranking, and conversion metrics — and translate the data into clear strategic recommendations. WHO YOU ARE - You've owned SEO for a company that competes in a high-volume, competitive search landscape and moved the needle meaningfully. - You've started thinking seriously about GEO and have a point of view on what it takes to show up in AI-generated answers. - You think about content strategically — not just as a ranking mechanism, but as a way to build authority and answer real questions. - You're as comfortable reviewing a technical audit as you are briefing a writer on what to create. - You track algorithm updates and model the second-order effects on your strategy before most people have written about them. - You can translate search insights into content and product recommendations that non-SEO stakeholders can act on. - You're based in San Francisco or willing to relocate. THE REALITY — READ THIS BEFORE YOU APPLY This is an organic-growth seat, measured in rankings, traffic, and the conversions they drive — not deliverables or audits for their own sake. It's on-site in San Francisco, in person, long days, high standards. The search landscape is shifting under everyone at once, which means there's no settled playbook to inherit — when an algorithm or model update moves your numbers, finding and fixing it is yours, often before the industry has even named what happened. You'll own both the mature SEO motion and the still-forming GEO one, so the job is as much first-principles judgment as it is craft. This is explicitly not a place to run a checklist someone else built, and it isn't a pure content or comms role. Almost no one takes it for insurance — they take it because owning search and AI discovery for a company growing ~100x, in a category where the rules are being rewritten in real time, is a rare seat. If being measured on organic results is the appeal, apply. If it's a deterrent, it won't get easier here. COMPENSATION & LOGISTICS - Salary: $130,000–$170,000, plus performance bonus and equity. - Location: On-site, San Francisco. Based here or willing to relocate. - Schedule: Monday–Friday, long days, in the building with the team. BENEFITS - Uber commuter benefits - Meals provided — breakfast, lunch, and dinner - Snacks, drinks, and coffee stocked daily - Free gym membership - Health, dental, and vision insurance REQUIREMENTS - 5+ years of SEO experience with ownership of organic search performance at a company with a significant content footprint - Proven track record improving rankings and organic traffic for competitive, high-intent keyword categories - Strong technical SEO skills: site audits, crawl optimization, structured data, Core Web Vitals, and indexation management - Experience developing content strategies tied to keyword opportunity and search intent - Working knowledge of SEO tooling (Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, Screaming Frog, Google Search Console, or comparable) - Familiarity with the GEO landscape and the emerging practices for optimizing content for AI-generated search experiences NICE TO HAVE - Experience in financial services, insurance, legal, or another YMYL category with high editorial standards - Direct experience optimizing for AI-powered search surfaces (Google SGE, Perplexity, ChatGPT Browse, or comparable) - Background building link acquisition programs or digital PR campaigns - Experience with programmatic SEO or large-scale content production at volume - Working knowledge of HTML/CSS and ability to implement minor technical changes independently PROCESS - People screen — fit and alignment - Lead screen — skills and judgment - Super day — how you operate in real time TO APPLY Send your resume and one keyword category you went after — the approach you took, and the results.