Senior Digital Growth & SEO Strategist — International Education

## About EduExplora EduExplora provides international students with academic and pre-college summer experiences at leading universities in the United States and abroad. We are looking for a **senior, hands-on Digital Growth & SEO Strategist** to significantly improve our organic search presence, website architecture, conversion performance, and ultimately student applications. Our immediate priority is **SEO strategy + WordPress implementation**, with the potential to expand the engagement into broader digital growth and customer acquisition. This is **not a basic SEO, backlink-building, or blog-production role.** We are looking for someone who can think strategically about how search demand turns into qualified leads and enrollments. ## The Challenge Our market includes companies such as Summer Springboard and other pre-college and academic summer-program providers. Families search for programs using terms around: * Pre-college summer programs * Summer programs for high school students * Summer programs in the USA * Programs for international students * Yale and UC Berkeley summer programs * Medical summer programs * Business summer programs * STEM and engineering summer programs * College preparation and university experiences We believe EduExplora has a particularly strong opportunity to become a leading organic search destination for **international families looking for academic summer experiences in the United States**. We need someone who can determine where that opportunity exists and build the strategy to capture it. ## Phase 1 — Strategy & Roadmap During the initial 4–6 week engagement, we expect you to: * Audit EduExplora's current SEO performance * Analyze Google Search Console and GA4 * Perform a technical SEO audit * Analyze our competitors, particularly Summer Springboard * Research and prioritize high-value search opportunities * Build a 50–100+ keyword opportunity map * Identify keywords where EduExplora can realistically compete * Map target keywords to existing and new pages * Recommend a scalable website architecture * Develop an international SEO strategy * Identify opportunities by university, academic subject and student market * Review internal linking and technical SEO * Analyze our conversion funnel * Recommend improvements to major program and landing pages * Prioritize the top 20–30 opportunities * Deliver a practical 6–12 month SEO and digital growth roadmap We don't want a generic automated SEO audit. At the end of Phase 1, we should know: **What should we change? What should we build? Which keywords should we pursue? In what order? Why? How will we measure success?** ## Phase 2 — Implementation We currently use **WordPress and do not have an in-house web developer.** Therefore, we strongly prefer someone who is comfortable implementing SEO recommendations directly in WordPress. This may include: * Creating and optimizing landing pages * Updating page structure * Titles, headings and metadata * Internal linking * Redirects * Schema * SEO plugin configuration * Technical/on-page SEO improvements * Basic site-speed optimization * Analytics and conversion tracking * Working with content writers when necessary You do **not** need to be an advanced WordPress/PHP developer. However, you should be capable of implementing normal SEO and website changes yourself and clearly defining requirements if specialized development is required. Successful completion of Phase 1 may lead to a **3–6+ month implementation engagement**. ## Who We're Looking For You should have strong experience with: * SEO strategy * Organic growth * Google Search Console * GA4 * Ahrefs and/or Semrush * Keyword research * Competitor analysis * Technical SEO * On-page SEO * Website architecture * Internal linking * WordPress * Conversion optimization * Landing-page strategy Experience in **international education, higher education, study abroad, travel, EdTech, or high-ticket B2C customer acquisition** is a strong advantage, but not mandatory. We care more about demonstrated results than certifications. ## What We're NOT Looking For Please do not apply if your primary SEO strategy is simply: * Publishing a certain number of blog posts every month * Buying/building backlinks * Generating automated SEO reports * Increasing traffic without measuring leads or conversions Content and backlinks may be part of the strategy, but we are looking for someone who understands **commercial SEO and customer acquisition**. ## How to Apply Please keep your proposal concise and answer the following questions. ### 1. EduExplora vs. Summer Springboard Please spend some time reviewing **EduExplora.com** and **SummerSpringboard.com**. What are the **three biggest organic-search opportunities** you immediately see for EduExplora? Please be specific. ### 2. Results Give us one or two examples where your SEO work produced measurable business results. We are particularly interested in: **Traffic → leads → customers/revenue** rather than traffic growth alone. Please include before/after numbers when possible. ### 3. Website Architecture Describe a project where you changed website architecture, created landing-page clusters, or developed a programmatic/scalable SEO structure that materially increased organic acquisition. What did you change and what happened? ### 4. WordPress What SEO and website changes can you personally implement inside WordPress? Please distinguish between what you can implement yourself and what would require a developer. ### 5. Strategy If you had **six months to increase EduExplora's organic acquisition**, which keyword/search category would you attack first and why? ### 6. Tools Which SEO and analytics tools do you use regularly? Please indicate whether you currently have professional access to **Ahrefs and/or Semrush**. ## First 30–60 Days In your proposal, briefly describe how you would approach the first 30–60 days of this engagement. We are looking for someone who can combine: **SEO strategy + data + website architecture + WordPress implementation + conversion thinking.** The goal is not simply to increase rankings. The goal is to make EduExplora one of the strongest online destinations for **international families searching for high-quality academic and pre-college summer programs in the United States and abroad — and convert that demand into qualified applications.**