BBC Hiring for Journalist, SEO Specialist in Growth & Audiences – Washington at Washington, DC Full Time

It’s an exciting time to be part of the BBC News team in North America. We are expanding and we want you to help us improve our coverage of the US and Canada and reach new audiences in the region and globally.

The size of the digital team across Washington, New York, LA and Toronto is more than doubling to 40 journalists. There will be more writers, editors and specialist reporters as well as new hubs focused on production, visual journalism and growing our audience.

The BBC wants to provide the best breaking news coverage of major events as well as more original reporting and innovative digital storytelling. Our readers want a richer global perspective on both US and international news.

We are seeking an SEO specialist skilled in optimising news content for search to join our Growth and Audiences team in Washington DC.

BBC News is committed to creating a more diverse, inclusive and agile organisation that responds quickly to changing audience needs, provides you with exceptional career opportunities, and strengthens our position as a world-leading source of trusted and impartial news.

Main Responsibilities

The SEO specialist will be an essential part of our newsroom and work alongside journalists in the US and Canada with the aim of improving editorial output using keyword research and on-page optimisation. You will:

• Monitor real-time and long-term search trends to identify opportunities for news coverage to target search audiences.
• Help journalists plan output by analysing historical search data and predicting future trends and related searches around events.
• Work with the Growth team to develop new growth strategies and measure performance.
• Help develop and provide regular reporting on our search performance.
• Recommend product improvements and provide SEO input on tech projects, collaborate on testing, QA, and implementation.
• Monitor and react to changes to search engine algorithms.
• Track changes in rankings and help deliver improvements.
• Conduct competitive analysis to spot opportunities in the market.
• Keep up to date with the latest SEO developments and news and ensure relevant updates across the organisation.
• Help develop internal SEO tools to increase efficiency and improve capabilities.
• Support Growth team in training journalists.

Are you the right candidate?

The successful candidate must have:

• A passion for news and the ability to work closely and collaborate with journalists.
• Recent experience using SEO tools to optimise content for search engines on a broad scale.
• Knowledge of search engine history and implementing best practices for search.
• Knowledge of smart on-page tactics such as keywords, tags, clean URLs, etc.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to work seamlessly with product, engineering, and editorial teams across the BBC.

This is a local hire position and eligible candidates must be able to live and work in the US (US citizenship, Green Card or work authorisation).

About the BBC

We don’t focus simply on what we do – we also care how we do it. Our values and the way we behave are important to us. Please make sure you’ve read about our values and behaviours in the document attached below.

Diversity matters at the BBC. We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual’s unique contribution, enabling all of our employees to thrive and achieve their full potential.

We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC – whether that’s to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.

We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.

To find out more about Diversity and Inclusion at the BBC, please click here

Package Description

Band: C
Contract type: Permanent
Location: Washington, USA

Local terms and conditions apply.