A key role in the commercial marketing team, the SEO Manager lives and breathes the strategies and tactics that surround organic acquisitions. Premier Inn is the market-leading budget hotel chain in ...

Role: SEO Manager

Function: eCommerce   

Location: Holborn

Employment Type: Permanent

A key role in the commercial marketing team, the SEO Manager lives and breathes the strategies and tactics that surround organic acquisitions.

Premier Inn is the market-leading budget hotel chain in the UK, with an on-going expansion into the German market. Plus Whitbread has a number of well-known restaurant brands throughout the UK. With such a large number of locations (850+ hotels & 400+ restaurants) we need to take a hyper local approach to SEO, considering the drivers to booking, and the answering of many other queries we get at a local level.

A fantastic communicator, you will be a vocal evangelist of SEO throughout the business, bringing performance data to life and pushing the boundaries of what a forward-thinking SEO operation can deliver for a book-direct, ecommerce platform.

With the help of your team of SEO experts and agency resource you will be at the vanguard of current SEO trends, algorithm updates, Google UI changes, etc and make timely recommendations on how to counteract any negative effects these may have on our business.

What you’ll be doing:

• Develop and execute a data-driven, innovative, measurable and accountable SEO strategy.
• Implement solid business processes for Premier Inn and our restaurant brands. Highly analytical mindset, customer-centric, a strong business sense and desire to seek out new possibilities and dive deep into technical solutions to support them.
• Develop and drive a data-led, scalable, creative SEO content strategy to capture search demand throughout user journey.
• Drive validated test roadmap and project plans; facilitate communication flow for Premier Inn and between Premier Inn and SEO agency.
• Deep understanding of local SEO, SEO in hotel and restaurants verticals, its trends and challenges/opportunities.
• Present and communicate results to the wider organization with weekly reporting of performance of how SEO performance is working in tandem with other channels
• Manage and optimize SEO tools and agencies
• Ensure ATL activity aligns and enhances the SEO strategy
• Line manage a team of SEO executives
• Keep abreast of SEM industry trends and developments, understanding of how SEO and SEM fits in the overall marketing mix.
• Collaborate with other commercial leads to ensure SEO strategy is aligned with overall SEM strategy
• Create, priorities and deliver the technical SEO backlog in conjunction with the in-house product teams, sprint teams, architects, business analysts, data scientists, etc.
• Manage SEO agencies (briefing, creative validation, etc and drive the agency on creating, optimising and reporting on SEO campaigns
• Develop and execute SEO tests roadmap in UK, DE, and globally, using rigorous approaches and measurement methods (A/B tests, statistical methods) and prove their effectiveness, ROI.
• Constantly analyse performance at a local level to deliver optimum performance for our hotel and restaurant sites for organic an meta search listings.
• Continually optimise performance through a thorough reviewing performance, analysing Google updates, etc using a number of SEO monitoring tools.
• Own the SEO budget and work with procurement to get the most out of the tools and agencies we use, with regular reviews
• Ensure out-going comms are SEO optimized, proactively seek out collaboration and amplification opportunities, leverage those channels to benefit organic acquisition performance.
• Foster a collaborative, innovative and accountable working environment. Where your line reports feel they are able to grow and develop
• Be the internal SEO evangelist, educate and influence stakeholders from various functions and seniorities. Improve SEO visibility within the business

Why we’d love you to apply:

• 5 year+ experience specifically acquired in SEO at the senior level. Hotel vertical is a definite plus.
• Direct experience of managing SEO agencies and in-house SEO end-to-end delivery.
• Proven successful technical, content and PR campaign delivery
• Experience managing European campaigns and sound commercial and financial management
• Fantastic communicator, entrepreneurial mindset, energetic and self motivated
• Strong commercial acumen and the willingness to learn and share
• Entrepreneurial mindset, energetic and self-motivated
• Data analytics, BI tools, insightful and actionable reporting, SQL is a definite plus
• Knowledge of master leading SEO tools for research, monitoring, reporting, diagnosis, etc.
• Absolutely up to date with the latest theories and trends in organic acquisition
• Solid understanding of paid search strategies and tactics, social media, affiliation programs, direct response offline advertising
• Completely tuned in to the latest web trends and technologies.
• Good understanding of web technologies like AWS, Apache, AngularJS, ReactJS, Akamai, pre-rendering, PWA, AMP, etc.

About Us

As a leading British business of more than 275 years standing, we have experienced turbulent times before and adapted and evolved to remain one of the hospitality sector’s most successful companies. Built on such robust foundations, our expertise has meant we responded decisively throughout this year with our teams, guests and the continuity of our business at the heart of every decision we made. We acted quickly, to ensure we were prepared for the future, whatever it may hold. 

What continues to set us apart are our excellent products and people. We have much loved brands such as Beefeater, Brewers Fayre, Bar + Block alongside exciting up and coming propositions such as Cookhouse & Pub. And in Premier Inn, we have the UK’s favourite budget hotel chain, currently outperforming the market and ambitious for more as we execute our plans in both the UK and Germany. At Whitbread, we remain true to our values and put our people at the centre of everything we do.

In return, we will offer you:

• Competitive Salary + 30% bonus potential.
• Share save scheme
• A collaborative work culture that focuses on supporting your success
• A flexible working policy you can rely on
• Individual BUPA healthcare
• Optional contributory pension matched up to 10%
• Up to 25% discount off our brands

Whitbread is an inclusive employer. We believe that everyone is unique and there should be no barriers to entry and no limits to ambition. We welcome your application whatever your background or situation. Under-represented groups such as women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities & members of the LGBTQ+ community (those who identify as gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, trans sexual, non binary or use another term), are strongly encouraged to build a career with us. We are open to part-time and flexible working and, where possible, will try to support this.