The opportunity
The Candidate is delighted to be partnering with a fast-growing, international travel business to appoint a Head of SEO . This is a senior leadership role for a results-driven SEO strategist who knows how to turn search demand into profit.
You’ll own organic search performance end to end. That means driving global visibility, high-intent traffic and direct bookings, and building the brand into the go-to authority in its market. Unlike many SEO roles, this one comes with real development resource behind it: it’s a build-and-scale role, not a maintenance role.
The role
Reporting into senior leadership, you’ll own the SEO roadmap and work closely with the product, development and marketing teams to deliver measurable growth. Alongside that, you’ll set a long-term strategy to secure category leadership in travel search.
Key responsibilities
SEO strategy and leadership
Lead and deliver a global SEO strategy aligned to traffic, ranking and revenue targets
Act as the senior voice of SEO across the business, educating stakeholders and shaping priorities
Data-driven landing page growth
Build scalable landing page frameworks powered by data and automation, such as destinations, itineraries and travel themes
Write clear, structured requirements for developers so SEO scalability is built into the CMS and codebase
Identify new page opportunities based on search demand, competition and commercial goals
Content strategy
Build a long-term content strategy that positions the brand as the most trusted, useful resource in its market
Create SEO content briefs and frameworks for writers, editors and external agencies
Oversee ongoing optimisation, including E-E-A-T, on-page improvements, internal linking and schema
Technical SEO and site performance
Partner with developers to improve crawlability, site speed, Core Web Vitals, indexation, structured data and international SEO
Lead regular site audits and continuously improve site health across devices and markets
Measurement and reporting
Build dashboards, forecasts and performance reviews for the leadership team
Own SEO reporting across rankings, traffic, conversions and ROI
Champion a test-and-learn culture driven by data and experimentation
About you
5+ years’ hands-on SEO experience, ideally across e-commerce, travel, marketplace or multi-market websites
Proven success building programmatic or data-rich landing pages that drive traffic and conversions
Strong experience leading content strategy, keyword frameworks and page-level optimisation
Confident writing detailed technical requirements and working closely with developers
Able to turn large datasets into clear, actionable strategy
Commercially driven, analytical and proactive, with a genuine test-and-learn mindset
Embraces AI and uses it to work smarter, and stays ahead of industry trends and algorithm changes
A clear communicator who can influence senior stakeholders and work across teams
Nice to have
International SEO and hreflang experience
Experience with AI tooling, AI-powered content workflows or schema automation
Understanding of CMS architecture
Travel or tourism industry experience
Basic SQL, Python or data visualisation skills
Why apply?
Shape the SEO future of an international travel brand with huge room for growth
Real development resource to build and scale, not just maintain
A collaborative, ambitious team that values data, initiative and fresh thinking
A people-first culture where curiosity and a sense of adventure are part of everyday life
Hybrid working from a Manchester base
Interested? Apply now or get in touch with Laura at The Candidate for a confidential conversation about the role.
Please note due to high volumes of applications unfortunately we are not always able to respond to all unsuccessful applicants. However we wish everyone who applies the very best with their job search.
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