Director of SEO & AI Search

*** Please note that this is a HYBRID role, requiring this person to work at our Cottonwood Heights office in SLC at least 3 days per week ***

It is an exciting time to be at Extra Space. We have been featured on multiple "Best Places to Work" awards, including Forbes and Glassdoor. We’re an S&P 500 company that hasn’t stopped growing since our founding in 1977. Today we are leading the self-storage industry in more ways than one, but in order to maintain this lead, we need exceptionally motivated, capable, and driven people like you. Self-storage is our product, helping people is our passion. Come grow with us and find out why so many of our employees recommend us as a great place to work.

The Director of SEO & AI Search is responsible for leading the company’s entire Local & Organic SEO ecosystem across 4,000+ self-storage facilities and all core digital properties. This role helps set the strategic vision, roadmap, and executional strategy for enterprise-level organic visibility, including Local SEO, Technical SEO, Content SEO, on-site optimization, and AI-driven search. The Director will oversee a high-performing SEO team, and maintain a strong relationship with agency partners, ensuring alignment, collaboration, and strong execution across every stage of the funnel. This leader will play a key role in positioning Extra Space at the forefront of the rapidly evolving search landscape experiences that transform how customers discover self-storage.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Lead and elevate the company’s full Local & Organic SEO strategy with a focus on visibility growth, scalable execution, and long-term competitive advantage.

• Oversee Local SEO and Organic SEO, ensuring unified prioritization, strong communication, and seamless collaboration with Web Optimization, Social Media, Paid Search, Data-Science, and IT.

• Develop and manage a comprehensive roadmap that supports both day-to-day performance and future-focused initiatives tied to AI search experiences.

• Measure and optimize organic performance, reporting regularly on KPIs, trends, testing outcomes, technical improvements, opportunities for growth.

• Provide strategic direction for AI search visibility, including AI Overviews optimization, schema expansion, and semantic SEO frameworks to ensure Extra Space is well-positioned for the next generation of search platforms.

• Identify, test, and evaluate new SEO technologies, methodologies, and innovations that improve efficiency and strengthen the overall organic strategy.

• Work closely with SEO managers to prioritize and guide development efforts with SEO developers to address technical SEO needs, including crawlability, indexation, internal linking, site architecture, Core Web Vitals, user experience, and content performance.

• Ensure SEO strategies fully reflect core marketing principles, CRO best practices, and a deep understanding of user behavior across both local search and traditional organic search journeys.

• Report out regularly on SEO KPIs and be accountable for driving sustained improvements across these indicators.

• Provide timely performance insights, trend analysis, testing outcomes, and visibility narratives to leadership, along with clear strategic recommendations and action plans.

• Manage SEO budgets, resource planning, vendor partnerships, and agency relationships to support a scalable and efficient execution model.

• Analyze performance data to uncover new opportunities and provide high-level recommendations that support acquisition goals.

• Mentor and develop SEO team members, providing clear guidance, feedback, growth plans, and ongoing support as they build expertise in Local Search, Technical SEO, Content SEO, and AI search innovation.

• Ensure Extra Space remains a leader in organic search visibility and is well-positioned for the future of AI-driven discoverability.

Job Specifications

• Manage team and inspire them with forward thinking vision.

• Grow Extra Space Storage’s online presence with integrity and using only best practices.

• Work closely with other digital marketing teams collaborating and creating a broad approach to new customer acquisition.

• You must be authentic and collaborative with general excitement to tell the story of your wins and losses to leadership and coworkers.

• Keen eye for other teams/departments projects that may have an unexpected impact on SEO.

• Responsible for being a problem solver that utilizes data to support direction and thrives on driving innovation.

• Ability to translate complex data into actionable plans for company leaders.

Education and Experience:

• Degree in Marketing, Advertising, IT or related field

• 8+ years in SEO or related position either with an agency or brand

• Experience developing websites, HTML, and standard mark-up preferred

• Strong knowledge and experience with AI platforms

• Strong experience in SEO testing, including designing hypotheses, managing controlled experiments, interpreting test results, and translating findings into scalable recommendations.

• Proven ability to build tools and internal applications that improve workflow efficiency, automate repetitive tasks, streamline data analysis, or enhance cross-team visibility into SEO performance.

• Experience with video as a growth channel, including optimizing video content for search, understanding YouTube/Google discoverability, and leveraging video as part of a broader organic visibility strategy.

If you are a current Extra Space employee, please apply through Jobs Hub in Workday.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

Applications Deadline: Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.