The final salary or hourly wage, as applicable, paid to each candidate/applicant for this position is ultimately dependent on a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, the candidate’s/applicant’s qualifications, skills, and level of experience as well as the geographical location of the position.

Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States. Sponsorship not available.

Our client is seeking a GEO Lead in for a Remote Opportunity

Role Description

The GEO Lead will partner with the Director SEO & ASO to define and drive IHG’s enterprise strategy for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)- also known as AEO, AIO, or AI Search Optimization, ensuring our brands, destinations, and hotels are discoverable and accurately represented across emerging AI search ecosystems (e.g., Google AI Overviews & AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, etc.). This role bridges traditional SEO with the next era of AI-driven discovery — shaping how IHG’s content is understood, cited, and surfaced by large language models (LLMs) and answer engines. The GEO Lead will partner closely with SEO, Innovation, Engineering, Product, Content, and Analytics teams to define the roadmap, measurement framework, and technical readiness for AI search visibility at scale.

Strategy & Leadership • In partnership with the Director, SEO & ASO, ;ead the creation and execution of IHG’s GEO strategy, integrating generative search readiness into existing SEO, content, and product workflows. • Translate emerging LLM behaviors, AI search features, and ecosystem shifts into actionable enterprise initiatives and product features. • Define the reporting and measurement framework for GEO, including custom KPIs such as AI citation share, answer-engine visibility, and generative query coverage. • Partner with the Director, SEO & ASO to guide IHG’s long-term vision for search discoverability in AI environments. • Build internal alignment across Marketing, Product, and Technology teams to embed GEO best practices globally. Optimization & Experimentation • Develop a deep understanding of LLM “levers” — the content, structure, and technical signals influencing model training, retrieval, and response ranking. • Collaborate with content teams to ensure site and destination content is structured, entity-rich, and optimized for machine comprehension. • Partner with technical SEO and engineering teams to strengthen structured data, API accessibility, and entity mapping to improve AI indexability. • Design and run controlled experiments to evaluate how changes in content architecture, data exposure, or prompt structures affect generative visibility. Measurement & Insights • Define and maintain new GEO KPIs in collaboration with Analytics (Adobe, Tableau, GSC, BigQuery, etc.). • Build dashboards to track performance across AI search platforms (e.g., AI Overview impressions, LLM citations, brand mentions). • Conduct competitive and market analyses to identify patterns in generative visibility and inform future content or technical enhancements. Technical & Product Collaboration • Partner with Product and Engineering to ensure IHG’s platforms (including MCP servers, APIs, and content delivery systems) are AI-crawlable and entity-aware. • Support development of scalable solutions for structured data, metadata, and API-based content distribution to AI models and answer engines. • Collaborate on product roadmap discussions where SEO and GEO capabilities intersect (e.g., content modules, structured data feeds, headless CMS integrations). Enablement & Evangelism • Educate internal stakeholders on GEO trends, LLM behavior, and evolving AI search opportunities. • Develop playbooks, training materials, and workflows to help regional and brand teams apply GEO best practices.

Skills & Requirements

• 5–8 years in SEO, digital strategy, or technical search optimization, with a focus on enterprise-scale websites. • Strong understanding of LLMs, generative AI search, and how models retrieve, summarize, and rank information. • Proven ability to design measurement frameworks and KPIs for emerging digital channels. • Solid grounding in structured data, schema markup, entity optimization, and API integration. • Experience collaborating cross-functionally across marketing, analytics, and product/engineering teams. • Excellent communication and storytelling skills; able to translate technical insights into strategic recommendations. Preferred: • Familiarity with MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers, APIs, and headless CMS architectures. • Experience working with enterprise analytics stacks (Adobe Analytics, Tableau, GSC, Looker, BigQuery), as well as LLM visibility tracking platforms. • Prior experience in product management, experimentation, or AI-driven content systems. • Hospitality or travel industry experience a plus.

Benefits/Other Compensation

This position is a contract/temporary role where Hays offers you the opportunity to enroll in full medical benefits, dental benefits, vision benefits, 401K and Life Insurance ($20,000 benefit).

Why Hays?

You will be
working with a professional recruiter who has intimate knowledge of the industry and market trends. Your Hays recruiter will lead you through a thorough screening process in order to understand your skills, experience, needs, and drivers. You will also get support on resume writing, interview tips, and career planning, so when there’s a position you really want, you’re fully prepared to get it.

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Hays is committed to building a thriving culture of diversity that embraces people with different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better we serve our candidates, clients, and employees. We are an equal employment opportunity employer, and we comply with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, creed, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), age, national origin or ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, marital status, genetic information, HIV-positive status, as well as any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. One of Hays’ guiding principles is ‘do the right thing’.

We also believe that actions speak louder than words.

In that regard, we train our staff on ensuring inclusivity throughout the entire recruitment process and counsel our clients on these principles. If you have any questions about Hays or any of our processes, please contact us.

In accordance with applicable federal, state, and local law protecting qualified individuals with known disabilities, Hays will attempt to reasonably accommodate those individuals unless doing so would create an undue hardship on the company. Any qualified applicant or consultant with a disability who requires an accommodation in order to perform the essential functions of the job should call or text 813.336.5570.

Drug testing may be required; please contact a recruiter for more information.