HT Media
Website:
htmedia.in
Job details:
About the Role
SEO Specialist (News Media, Technical & AI Search)
Hindustan Times is looking for an analytical, fast-moving Sr. SEO Specialist to grow organic visibility across one of India's largest digital news platforms. You will connect newsroom workflows, technical SEO at scale, and AI search visibility, so HT is found, cited, and clicked, whether readers start on Google or ask an AI assistant.
Key Responsibilities
1. Newsroom SEO & Content Growth
- Give real-time SEO guidance for breaking news, live blogs, explainers, and evergreen content.
- Grow visibility across Google Search, Top Stories, Discover, and Google News.
- Own keyword research, keyword mapping, and topic-cluster strategy to build topical authority.
- Work with editors on headlines, metadata, URLs, internal linking, and search intent alignment.
- Track traffic spikes, ranking drops, and Google core and spam updates, and lead recovery plans.
2. Technical SEO
- Own the technical health of a large news site with millions of indexed URLs.
- Optimise crawl budget, indexation, news sitemaps, and log file analysis.
- Partner with Engineering on JavaScript rendering, Core Web Vitals, and SEO requirements for launches, redesigns, and migrations.
- Implement and audit structured data (NewsArticle, LiveBlogPosting, ClaimReview, VideoObject, FAQPage, Organization, Person) as per requirements.
4. AEO, GEO & AI Citation
- Build and run AEO/GEO strategies to earn citations in AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot.
- Structure content for extractability: answer-first formatting, entity-rich writing, and strong author/publisher (E-E-A-T) signals.
- Track AI citations, share of voice, and AI referral traffic; benchmark against competitor publishers.
- Strengthen entity and knowledge graph presence (Wikidata, Knowledge Panel).
5. Analytics, Reporting & Collaboration
- Track performance using GSC, GA4, BigQuery, Looker Studio, Semrush/Ahrefs, and Screaming Frog.
- Run competitor and SERP feature audits, and share clear insights and recommendations with editorial and leadership teams.
- Train writers and editors on SEO best practices, and mentor junior team members.
Requirements
- Experience: 5-6 years of hands-on SEO, preferably in news, publishing, or high-volume content sites, with a proven record of growing rankings and organic traffic.
- Technical SEO: Crawling, indexing, canonicalization, JavaScript SEO, structured data, Core Web Vitals.
- News SEO: Google News, Discover, Top Stories, and live/breaking content experience.
- AI Search: Understanding of AEO, GEO, AI citation, and how LLMs select and cite sources; hands-on AI visibility audits are a plus.
- Tools: GSC, GA4, Screaming Frog, Semrush or Ahrefs, Google Trends, Looker Studio, Excel/Google Sheets.
- Communication: Explains technical needs to developers and search insights to editors; strong stakeholder management.
Good to Have
- Basic SQL or Python.
- Hindi/regional-language SEO experience.
- Experience with website migrations.
Work Environment
- Fast-paced digital newsroom with close collaboration across editorial, product, and engineering.
- Work Mode: On-site at Noida / New Delhi, with rotational day and night shifts as per newsroom requirements.
- Occasional off-hours support during major breaking news.
Send your updated candidature to -
Sameeksha Chauhan - sameeksha.chauhaan@htdigital.in
Anubhav Tyagi - anubhav.tyagi@htdigital.in
Raja Sharma - raja.sharma@htdigital.in
Click on Apply to know more.