About the role
Quo (formerly OpenPhone) is becoming one of the most recognized brands in communication for small businesses, but were still largely invisible to the customers who need us most. Most small businesses don't know that the reality theyre living with (e.g. missing customer calls, looking unprofessional, losing leads between team members) actually has a solution. Thats the opportunity that this role will help us fill.
Were hiring a Director of AEO/SEO to own how Quo shows up when small business owners go looking for answers. Today, individuals are using AI engines, conversational interfaces, and LLM-powered tools to work through their problems and discover solutions. Google search results are no longer the only way to gather information, but one of many. This is a rare, first-mover opportunity in a space that's changing constantly.
Youll lead a small, high-ownership team and operate at the intersection of strategy and execution. Youll build the content strategy that earns us citations and trust, define how we measure success in a world where attribution is getting harder, and partner cross-functionally with our content creation teams to ensure that everything Quo creates, from blog posts to videos and third-party publications, feed the signal that AI systems learn from. This is as much a content strategy and brand authority role as it is an SEO role. And ultimately, its a high-impact role with responsibility for our organic customer acquisition numbers. That means thinking carefully about every step between a persons first question and their first day as an Quo customer: what content meets them at each stage, what action it should prompt, and how to remove the friction between discovery and conversion.
Some of the things you'll do:
Define and own Quo's AEO strategy - how we get cited when a small business owner asks an AI things like "I cant answer my phone all the time, what should I do?" or "Whats the best phone system for a small business?"
Build the content strategy that creates demand instead of solely capturing it: mapping the jobs-to-be-done that Quo solves to the questions people are actually asking in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and traditional search
Own the conversion layer across all organic content: understand what role each page plays in a prospective customers information-gathering journey (awareness, consideration, or decision) and ensure every page has the right CTA, message, and next step to move them forward. A page that earns a citation but fails to convert is only half a win.
Own Quos SEO roadmap: technical hygiene is table stakes; your real leverage is in content architecture, structured data, entity authority, and the signals that make LLMs trust and cite us
Partner with the content team to translate strategy into editorial direction, topic clusters, and briefs - you set the what and why, they execute the how
Build and own a measurement framework with organic customers as the north star: track the full funnel from AI citation rates and impression share through to on-site conversion, trial velocity, and downstream revenue - and tell a clear story about whats working even when attribution is imperfect. Traffic without revenue impact isnt success.
Act as the cross-functional connector for organic visibility - work with Community, Brand, Influencer, Video, and Social teams to help them understand how their work feeds the LLM training signal and compounds over time
Lead a small, high-ownership team with clarity and accountability: establish what "good" looks like, develop people as deliberately as you develop strategy, and take full ownership of what the team produces
Bring a builders mindset to tooling and automation: use AI tools aggressively to scale your teams research, analysis, tracking, and reporting capacity
About you
A strong track record for sustainable organic growth. 7-10 years of building and scaling organic growth programs at B2B companies, with real command across content architecture, entity authority, technical SEO, and structured data. You know what it takes to build lasting organic growth (not just traffic spikes) and youve done it in environments where you owned the outcomes, not just the activities
Youre actively experimenting in AEO. You've been tracking citations, testing how content structure affects LLM outputs, and developing your own point of view on how AI engines select and surface sources. You dont need to have cracked it. You need to have been building toward it, and you need to be able to articulate clearly why it matters and where its going
You think like a content strategist, not a keyword farmer. You understand that Quo's most valuable audience is the one that doesnt know theyre looking for us yet, and you know how to reach them. You also understand that the customer journey is long, non-linear, and increasingly happening in channels you cant fully track.
Results driven. You make performance measurable even when the discipline is still defining its own metrics. You know how to create frameworks that give your team visibility into what "good" looks like and how their work connects to business outcomes
High agency. Low ego, high ownership: you dont wait for the playbook. You write it. Youre hands-on, you lead from the front, and you hold yourself accountable for outcomes
Strong cross-functional instincts. Youve driven alignment with content, brand, product, and engineering teams, and you understand intuitively that everything the company does feeds organic visibility
Team builder. Youve developed your own approach to people management and can point to specific examples of how youve helped someone grow. You build trust by being clear about the rationale behind decisions, especially hard ones. Your team knows where things stand, whats expected, and why it matters. You dont manage through ambiguity or avoid difficult conversations. Above all, you hold yourself accountable for your teams development, not just their output
Think in full-funnel terms. You understand that getting someone to quo.com is only the beginning. You care about what role each piece of content plays at each stage of the journey, and you know that the right CTA at the right moment is as strategic as the content itself
Comfortable with attribution ambiguity. You can build rigorous measurement frameworks and tell a compelling story from multi-touch, non-linear data (including signals that dont fit neatly into a dashboard), and youre always working backwards from sign-ups, not forward from impressions
Curious by default and demonstrably ahead of the field. You follow the thought leaders, run your own experiments, and consistently update your own mental models as the discipline evolves
Compensation
The annual base salary range for this position is as follow, plus equity and benefits:
SF Bay Area, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Boston, New York, and Washington, DC Metro: $190,000 - $212,000 USD
All other US Locations: $170,000 - $188,000 USD
Canada: $194,000 - $215,000 CAD
The ranges displayed reflect the target for new hire salaries, and within each range, individual pay is determined by your skills and experience, as well as relevant education. Your recruiter can share more and answer questions about the specific salary range during the hiring process.
Salary is just one component of Quo's total compensation package. Your total rewards package will include equity, extensive medical coverage, a monthly lifestyle stipend, and a flexible PTO policy.