In a nutshell

At Sainsbury’s we believe that the customer should be at the heart of everything we do which is why we have put digital at the centre of our vision of being there for their customers whenever, wherever and however they want and of serving more of our customers more of the time. Within Digital we are one organisation, driving brilliant experiences across all our brands operating in agile teams and working seamlessly together to make the most of the exceptional knowledge, insight and talent that we have across the Division.

As SEO Optimisation Lead, you will be the driving force of our on-going optimisation programme. As well as owning and evolving the plan, you will be responsible for a continuous test and learn strategy to derive more value and efficiency from our activity in this area.

What you need to do

· Be responsible for SEO optimisation plan across the businesses, aligning activity to corporate calendar, SEO opportunity and market trends.

· Develop the optimisation process and how it can be improved with the SEO Manager.

· Through careful analysis of impacts of activity and understanding performance trends you will evolve the optimisation plan over time.

· Be the driving force of new optimisation initiatives and trials, focused on yielding better business outcomes and more efficiency in our production.

· Develop and deliver a continuous test and learn plan to ensure our best practices remain current.

· You will be responsible for delivering consistent and thorough communication of key performance metrics and progress of initiatives. You will proactively update priorities as a result of this analysis.

· Actively collaborate with other SEO Leads and the Technical and Technology teams to ensure we have an aligned view of priority initiatives across SEO.

· Work closely and build relationships with third party agencies to ensure our search strategy is achieved and that we learn from market trends.

· Work closely with the broader Sainsbury’s SEO team to share and evolve best practice. This will be informed by your observations, tests and market research.

· Actively share knowledge with the wider Digital community including general advice, SEO best practices and support the on-going SEO empowerment of Digital colleagues to achieve better digital execution.

· Stay connected to the SEO industry for developments and changes to the strategics, tactics, technology, and solutions available in the market.

· Successfully lead SEO Optimisation Executives in their support of your plan.

What you need to know and show

· Relevant experience within an SEO role, with knowledge of content optimisation techniques and some experience in digital.

· Be able to confidently analyse data and make priority decisions as a result of this analysis.

· Have a strong set of project management and planning skills.

· Clearly and succinctly communicate SEO performance to a variety of stakeholders.

You will support the SEO team, and the key stakeholders you work closely with, to continue to drive a ‘digital mindset’ shift across the organisation.

· You will build strong relationships with strategic partners and 3rd parties, engaging directly with senior colleagues within these organisations. You will use your awareness of our wider digital agenda and priorities to communicate effectively and enable them to best support us.

· You have excellent attention to detail and are passionate about customer experience.

· Excellent communication skills and strong interpersonal skills. You have the ability to collaborate well across teams and with individuals in order to achieve high quality output.

· You have a confident level of creativity, initiative and influencing skills to support abstract problem solving.

· Previous experience of third-party insight tools e.g Conductor, SEMrush and Similarweb (or equivalent)

· Maintain up-to-date knowledge on SEO marketplace and available insight.

· You have excellent numerical and analysis skills, having a robust knowledge of Excel and a thorough understanding of Google/Bing Search Console, knowledge of Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics and other major third-party analytics platforms.

· It is desirable that you will be familiar with workflow tools such as Jira, Confluence and Basecamp.

What decisions I can make including budget

· Job holder has accountability for delivering the SEO optimisation strategy across the Sainsbury’s business.

· You need to be aware of financial impacts of decisions & to ensure risks & opportunities are mitigated / flagged to budget holder (SEO Manager)

· The role plays a key part in improving digital outcomes.

Directly or indirectly manages

· Directly manage 2 SEO Optimisation Executives

· Indirectly management copywriters and administrators based in India.

· Agency Partners and 3rd Party Vendors.

· You will play a visible and active leadership role across the wider SEO and CGC team.

Support we will provide

· Technology and access to all necessary tools for you and your team along with flexible working arrangements in order to be most effective. Access to a suite of SEO and digital technologies e.g. Conductor Searchlight, SEMrush, screaming frog

· Sainsburys Learning & Development resources along with line management support.

· Opportunity to participate in relevant industry events in order to remain current and up-to-date with SEO industry dynamics and developments.

· Direct access to our partner agencies and vendors

Qualifications

We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new — whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:

Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to save 10% on your shopping online and instore at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat, and we regularly increase the discount to 15% at points during the year. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 10% of salary, depending on how we perform.

Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance and you can buy up to an additional week's holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, salary advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an employee assistance programme.

Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.

Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibiity criteria may apply).

Responsibilities

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. Our digital team is a big team that reaches millions of customers each week — with tangible results. It’s also a place where you could get to discover different parts of the business, as you’ll have every chance to experience more than one. The culture in Digital is one of failing fast and experimenting, so from trading through to merchandising and forecasting, you’ll be part of a truly agile environment.