Job role model · SEO
SEO Manager
v1.0Sets the search strategy, owns the roadmap and develops the people delivering it.
Holds the search strategy and the team that delivers it.
Reference ROLE-SEO-002 · Due for review 2027-03-31
Essential to the role
4 capabilities. A level belongs to the skill, not to the person — and a missing record is not a claim that someone lacks the skill.
You set the roadmap and defend the forecast.
L2 CaterpillarL2 looks like this: You build a quarter's roadmap from demand, difficulty and what the business can actually deliver, with the targets written down.
You are the final call on what a query wants.
L2 CaterpillarL2 looks like this: You sort a set of real queries into intents, name the page type that satisfies each, and defend the call against the traffic data.
You hold the standard the team writes to.
L2 CaterpillarL2 looks like this: You optimise a page for its target query, state the change in search data you expect, and measure whether it happened.
A specialist reports to you and has to get better.
L2 CaterpillarL2 looks like this: You review other people's work and give feedback that changes it, and set a junior colleague on a path they can hold.
Desirable
Worth holding, but the role can be done without them.
L1 LarvaL1 looks like this: You can read a crawl report and name the fault types without help.
L2 CaterpillarL2 looks like this: You run an outreach or digital-PR campaign, and report the links that actually moved rankings rather than the ones that were easy to get.
L2 CaterpillarL2 looks like this: You take a stakeholder conversation to a decision, including the option you recommend and why you rejected the others.