Senior SEO Strategist at Brafton – Agency Career Growth in Columbus
Career & Market Insight
This role sits at the intersection of technical SEO, client strategy, and content marketing — a combination that builds highly marketable, versatile skills in digital marketing. The required proficiency in tools like SEMRush, Screaming Frog, DeepCrawl, and Google Search Console is standard for mid-to-senior SEO roles, and agency experience accelerates career growth faster than in-house positions due to multi-client exposure.
Market positioning: For a Senior SEO Strategist at a digital content agency in Canada, market rates typically range from CAD 65,000–90,000 annually. No salary is listed here, so negotiation leverage is important — candidates should benchmark against this range.
- Green flags: Agency environment means diverse client exposure (e-commerce, enterprise), which is a resume accelerator. The emphasis on continuous learning signals a growth-oriented culture.
- Green flags: Commission on top of base salary is uncommon in pure SEO roles — it suggests performance is rewarded and earning potential can scale.
- Watch for: Client-facing agency roles can be high-pressure with tight deadlines; the "fast-paced environment" language confirms this. Work-life balance depends heavily on team size and client load.
Skills developed here — technical SEO auditing, UX/migration strategy, Core Web Vitals, and E-A-T frameworks — are in strong and growing demand as search evolves with AI. This role is a solid stepping stone toward an SEO Director, Head of Organic, or independent consulting career path.
This is a full-time remote position open to candidates across Canada.
Brafton is looking for an SEO strategist to join our Consulting Department.
The ideal candidate has previous agency experience, a passion for digital marketing, excellent problem-solving skills, very strong attention to detail, and a ton of curiosity about the ever-changing search landscape.
SEO is always evolving. Even more important than being a current expert is being a perennial learner. The right person will be an exceptionally curious individual who is both autodidactic and capable of learning from others.
This is a client-facing role that interfaces with many internal stakeholders and produces consistently thoughtful work. To succeed, the SEO strategist must have strong people skills (communicating, problem-solving, building relationships), be exceptionally analytical and technical, and also be a very strong writer. This individual needs to make complex search concepts and technical items easy to understand and interesting.
Responsibilities & Tasks
- Craft competitive and compelling audits, proposals, and reports
- Expertly utilize software tools (like MarketMuse, SEMRush, and Ahrefs) to assess the health of clients' websites and itemize errors and opportunities
- Execute against planned scopes relating to site optimization or other technical SEO-specific tasks
- Undertake SEO-specific research or optimization work for projects including but not limited to: UX/website redesigns, large-scale organic SEO work (including keyword research), and backlink-focused projects
- Leverage a strong understanding of Google Analytics
- Be a versatile team player who can tackle various projects and collaborate with all teams
- Be a constant student of SEO, applying learnings to work and sharing knowledge with internal and client-facing teams
Qualifications
- 3–5+ years of experience contributing to or managing SEO programs, preferably in an agency setting
- Evidence of success with previous SEO campaigns for medium to large brands, ideally including e-commerce companies
- Strong understanding of cross-channel marketing principles
- Compelling written and verbal communication skills, a positive attitude, and the ability to thrive in a collaborative and fast-paced environment
- Advanced understanding of technical SEO concepts (crawling, indexing, rendering, AMP, site migrations, page speed optimization, Core Web Vitals, and more)
- Strong project management and organization skills; ability to prioritize and manage multiple projects
- Advanced understanding and experience with Google Analytics and Google Search Console; Tag Manager and/or Publisher Center is a plus
- Understanding of recent SEO developments such as Core Web Vitals, Google Discover, E-A-T, new Rich Results, and more
- Intermediate to advanced knowledge of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS as they impact search performance
- Strong knowledge and experience using standard and enterprise search tools and platforms (SEMRush, Sistrix, DeepCrawl, Screaming Frog, GTMetrix, etc.)
- Ability to meet scheduled and proposed deadlines
- Comfort with and mastery of spreadsheet formats (Google Sheets, Excel)
- Skill with formatting professional presentations and reports in MS PowerPoint and Google Slides
Benefits Include: Commission, Health Savings Account, pension, paid vacation, flexible remote schedule, and more!
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this SEO Strategist role fully remote?
What level of SEO experience is required for this role?
What tools and platforms should I know to qualify for this position?
Does this role include performance-based pay?
Is this role suitable for candidates without agency experience?
