Answer Engine Optimization Manager

Answer Engine Optimization Manager is a strategic, hands-on role within Citizens’ Digital Content & Experience Strategy organization. This role is responsible for building and operating Citizens’ Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) Center of Excellence, defining how the brand is discovered, interpreted, and represented across AI-driven search and answer environments.

As search evolves from links and clicks to answers, citations, and AI-mediated trust, this role focuses on increasing Citizens’ visibility, accuracy, and authority across answer engines such as Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and emerging platforms, especially across top- and mid-funnel journeys.

Operating at the intersection of search intelligence, AI discovery, content structure, and governance, this role translates rapidly evolving search dynamics into practical standards, playbooks, and insights that cross-functional can consistently apply.

This role partners deeply with Content Strategy, SEO, Social Media, Web Strategy, Brand, PR, Digital Media, Paid Search, Analytics, Product, Technology, Legal, Risk, and Compliance teams to shape how Citizens’ knowledge (expertise, product details, and thought leadership) is structured, governed, measured, and surfaced. Success is measured by trusted visibility, competitive share of answers, accuracy, and clear influence on customer confidence and business outcomes.

The ideal candidate is both strategic and hands‑on: a builder who can set vision, define strategy, influence senior stakeholders, and translate rapidly evolving search and AI dynamics into scalable practices, standards, and measurable results.

Key Responsibilities

Answer Engine & AI Discovery Strategy

• Lead the evolution of Citizens’ search practice from traffic‑driven SEO to AEO, focused on visibility, authority, and trust across answer engines.
• Develop, operationalize, and scale Citizens’ enterprise AEO strategy and roadmap aligned with business priorities.
• Educate stakeholders on how to increase Citizens’ visibility, and measure the quality of traffic sourced from answer engine 
• Earn cross-functional buy-in, evangelize and implement content and technical AEO best practices.
• Analyze how customers encounter Citizens and competitors across answer engines (e.g., Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Claude, Meta AI, etc.) and translate insights into actionable strategy.
• Develop strong operating routines and drive cross‑functional alignment, goal‑setting, cohesive execution, and shared accountability across partner teams.
• Monitor shifts in search behavior, bot activity, AI answer formats, algorithm updates, and system access patterns to identify risk and opportunity.
• Synthesize insights into clear, executive‑ready narratives that inform content, product, brand, PR, and experience decisions.

Measurement & Search Intelligence

• Define and lead next‑generation AEO measurement frameworks that connect: 
  • Visibility: citations, mentions, share of answers
  • Authority: entity strength and topic‑level ownership
  • Impact: customer confidence, engagement, and downstream business influence (leads, applications, and product consideration including measuring citation and mention share as well as sentiment)
• Build and maintain dashboards that translate complex discovery data into clear insights for senior leaders.
• Evangelize actionable insights flowing constantly across content marketing, web development, paid search, social media marketing, PR, and brand marketing.

Content Knowledge & Architecture

• Drive cross‑functional alignment to structure Citizens content as authoritative, machine‑readable knowledge that is clear for humans and interpretable by answer engines, in partnership with marketing and technology teams.
• Support development of answer‑based content models, including: 
  • Definitions, FAQs, comparisons, and decision support
  • Explicit attribution, sourcing, and disclosures
  • Modular content designed for reliable reuse in AI‑powered experiences
• Apply entity‑based optimization principles to strengthen AI understanding of Citizens’ products, expertise, locations, and brand authority.
• Ensure content is factually precise, citation‑ready, compliant, and resilient against AI misrepresentation or hallucination.
• Lead the evolution of standards for EEAT, accuracy, and trust signals in AI‑driven discovery environments, including influence across prioritized third‑party and aggregator platforms.

Governance, Risk & Cross‑Functional Leadership

• Operate within existing SEO and content governance models while helping define new guardrails for AI‑powered search.
• Identify, escalate, and mitigate technical, content, or compliance‑related risks tied to answer engine visibility and discovery.
• Ensure discoverability improvements align with security, accessibility, privacy, and regulatory standards.

Qualifications

• 7-10+ years of experience in SEO, search strategy, and digital discovery, ideally within financial services or other regulated, YMYL industries.
• Deep understanding of answer engines, AEO, AI powered search, and conversational discovery
• Deep understanding of the technical details of AEO as well as answer engines’ impacts on the top and middle of the funnel.
• Working knowledge of how LLMs evaluate content quality, authority, and factual consistency.
• Experience optimizing answer content (e.g., featured snippets, FAQs, comparisons), including for sensitive or complex topics.
• Proven ability to translate complex data into insight, narrative, and strategic recommendation for senior audiences.
• Paid search and aggregator experience is a plus but not required.

Representative Tools & Analytics (Not Exhaustive)

• Adobe Analytics
• Google Search Console, Ahrefs, Conductor, Screaming Frog
• Familiarity with entity, audience, or influence‑based research tools (e.g., Brandlight, SparkToro) is a plus
• Comfort operating with emerging or ambiguous metrics as standards evolve

Core Competencies

• Strong cross‑functional collaborator and influencer
• Analytical, strategic thinker with strong synthesis skills
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity and rapid change
• Clear, confident communicator (written and verbal)
• Curious, test‑and‑learn mindset balanced with sound judgment
• Detail‑oriented with a strong appreciation for risk, governance, and accuracy

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Hours & Work Schedule

• Hours per Week: 40
• Work Schedule: M-F 8-5 In Westwood MA, Pittsburgh PA, New York, NY, or Boston MA office 4 days 1 day remote. 

Pay Transparency 

The salary range for this position is $131,000 - $171,000 per year, plus an opportunity to earn an annual discretionary bonus. Actual pay is based on various factors including but not limited to the work location, and relevant skills and experience.

We offer competitive pay, comprehensive medical, dental and vision coverage, retirement benefits, maternity/paternity leave, flexible work arrangements, education reimbursement, wellness programs and more. Note, Citizens’ paid time off policy exceeds the mandatory, paid sick or paid time-away policy of every local and state jurisdiction in the United States. For an overview of our benefits, visit https://jobs.citizensbank.com/benefits .

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Equal Employment Opportunity

Citizens, its parent, subsidiaries, and related companies (Citizens) provide equal employment and advancement opportunities to all colleagues and applicants for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, citizenship, physical or mental disability, perceived disability or history or record of a disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity or expression, genetic information, genetic characteristic, marital or domestic partner status, victim of domestic violence, family status/parenthood, medical condition, military or veteran status, national origin, pregnancy/childbirth/lactation, colleague’s or a dependent’s reproductive health decision making, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or any other category protected by federal, state and/or local laws. At Citizens, we are committed to fostering an inclusive culture that enables all colleagues to bring their best selves to work every day and everyone is expected to be treated with respect and professionalism. Employment decisions are based solely on merit, qualifications, performance and capability.

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