SEO Editor, Features and Food at Los Angeles Times in El Segundo, California

Job Description:

Join the hundreds of talented and innovative team members who are making an impact every day at California Times, incorporating Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune, two of the most iconic media brands in the nation. Whether you love to tell compelling stories or want to drive our award-winning powerhouse in new directions, the Los Angeles Times team is the place to be.

Job Description Summary

Do you dream of Google trends? Do you search Google and admire the carousel choices? Do you know what it takes to snag a spot in a Featured Snippet? Do you think about strategies for making sure the content you are working with finds its audience? Do you find yourself gravitating to stories and guides about food, travel, plants, hiking and other ways to enjoy life?

If yes, you should join the SEO team at the Los Angeles Times.

We are looking for a data-minded journalist to work with our Food, Lifestyle and West Coast Experience desks to identify and optimize trending and evergreen guides to ensure Times content that matters most to our audience is appearing prominently and regularly in search engines. This should be done in a variety of ways including but not limited to keyword research, SEO calendars that emphasize timing, live competitive analysis of major stories with suggestions for improvement and alternate search angles, the ability to turn a quick story as needed as well as regular tracking and reporting on trends and performance using Google Analytics and other tools.

Job Description

Responsibilities: 

• Know the big stories of the day and make sure they are optimized for search, link to related stories and the related assets (images, video, graphics) are optimized for search 


• Be able to suggest three to five stories based on search every morning that the Lifestyle, West Coast Experience and Food teams should be pursuing


• Come up with a game plan for publishing stories and continually be experimenting, learning and adjusting with an eye toward the best search results


• Identify key search terms with low competition and high search volume and determine with editors places we are most likely to win


• Do competitive analysis to understand how we ranked and be able to explain how we can improve and work on making those improvements


• Attend staff meetings having done keyword research on the major stories, topics, features and tent-pole events; be prepared to pitch stories and advise writers on the best way to execute stories to maximize search traffic. Note: You should be enough of an expert on Los Angeles to pitch content that is appropriate for the L.A. Times’ readers


• Write occasional search-friendly stories as needed


• Reoptimize archived content when appropriate and recommend evergreen stories with long-tail search opportunities


• Execute recommendations for content development in coordination with SEO goals 


• Identify areas of growth and new opportunities for our various beats


• Create and maintain SEO documentation and resources for all audiences within the organization and provide individualized training to journalists to establish SEO best practices


• Stay abreast of industry trends, managing experimentation with search tools and techniques

Qualifications:

• At least two years of experience doing search engine optimization


• Demonstrated understanding of putting together SEO data reports, including competitive analysis 


• Knowledge of the search engine industry, best practices for evergreen search and knowledge of search engine algorithms and an interest in monitoring search industry websites, blogs and news sources


• Adept at technology and experience using Google Analytics, SEMrush, Excel and other industry-leading SEO tools


• Experience working closely with editors and reporters 


• Well-versed in journalism best practices and ethics


• Strong writing skills, with the ability to clearly and effectively articulate thoughts and points


• Experience teaching and measuring results SEO best practices

The L.A. Times is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes expressions of interest from people with diverse backgrounds and perspectives. Explore our company history, achievement, values, mission and more on our Careers Site.

This position is classified as Multiplatform Editor in the Los Angeles Times Guild. Times staffers are currently working remotely, but when we return to the newsroom this position will be based in El Segundo, Calif. Occasional night and weekend work is required.

The Company is a mandatory vaccination employer for COVID-19 and its variants. The Company requires that its employees be fully vaccinated as of their start date. If you require a medical or religious accommodation, we will engage in the interactive process with you. Proof of vaccination will be required prior to start. If we make you an offer and you are not yet vaccinated, we will accommodate a delay in start date. 

Qualified applicants should upload a resume, cover letter explaining the approach you would take and work samples or links to Deputy Director of Audience Engagement Seth Liss at the apply link. Please note, the opportunity to attach additional documents appears on the third screen and is labeled “Upload.”

Thank you for your interest in joining our team at the Los Angeles Times!  We look forward to reviewing your application.