Product Manager, SEO

Position Overview

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Upwork ($UPWK) is the world’s largest work marketplace, connecting businesses with highly skilled professionals worldwide. From entrepreneurs to Fortune 100 enterprises, companies trust Upwork’s platform to access expert talent, leverage AI-powered work solutions, and drive meaningful business outcomes. Upwork’s AI-powered platform has facilitated over $20 billion in economic opportunity for professionals worldwide. With professionals spanning 10,000+ skills, including AI and machine learning, software development, sales and marketing, customer support, finance and accounting, and more, Upwork empowers businesses of all sizes to scale, innovate, and build agile teams.

Upwork is seeking an SEO Product Manager to join our expanding SEO team. This is a high-impact role where you’ll not only implement traditional SEO best practices but also help shape our strategy in response to the emergence of AI-powered search experiences like Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs), large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI and Perplexity, and generative search technology. You’ll collaborate across functions to drive discoverability in this new era of search, where understanding how search engines and LLMs process and display content is more crucial than ever. This is a thrilling opportunity for someone who flourishes at the intersection of content, product, and data, and who’s passionate about experimenting and learning in an AI-transformed search landscape.

Responsibilities

• Advocate for the customer by applying a product mindset to SEO work, ensuring that solutions are user-centric and aligned with core business goals.
• Manage and execute SEO projects, emphasizing both traditional optimization and visibility strategies for the AI era.
• Examine how generative search models and AIOs impact Upwork's rankings and traffic, and suggest necessary adaptations.
• Develop project plans and timelines, ensure alignment among stakeholders, and produce high-quality work with measurable outcomes.
• Design and implement SEO and CRO experiments, including split tests and pre/post tests, to assess the effects of changes in content, layout, and technical elements on traffic, engagement, and conversion performance.
• Conduct keyword research and perform content audits tailored for both classic SERPs and LLM-generated results.
• Collaborate with content, design, and engineering teams to implement structured data, schemas, and technical enhancements that boost visibility in AI-driven search experiences.
• Translate data from tools such as Google Search Console and third-party platforms into actionable insights and monitor performance across both traditional and AI-influenced environments.
• Keep up with industry shifts, such as algorithm updates and developments in search AI, LLMs, and conversational interfaces.
• Ongoing tracking of search results, including ranking changes, page performance, and competitor mix.

Requirements

• Experience: 2 to 4 years of experience in SEO with a solid understanding of both technical and content-driven strategies.
• Project Management: Exhibited project management abilities to orchestrate collaborative initiatives and achieve results on schedule.
• Customer-Centric Approach: Experience implementing a customer-centric, product-oriented approach to SEO with user experience at the core of the strategy.
• Results-Driven: Demonstrated experience in driving organic traffic and conversion results, preferably with marketplace, SaaS or e-commerce websites.
• AI Search Knowledge: Curiosity and foundational knowledge of AI-powered search trends, including how LLMs and generative search engines are reshaping SEO.
• Analytical Skills: Strong analytical skills and hands-on experience using tools like Google Search Console, Looker, Ahrefs, SEOClarity, and StatSig to drive decision-making.
• Communication: Clear, collaborative communication style and the ability to partner across product, marketing, UX, content, and engineering teams.
• Mindset: A growth mindset and eagerness to learn.