Director, SEO & AI Discovery

This is a hybrid role - 2 days remote and 3 days in the Malvern, PA office.

CubeSmart is hiring a Director of SEO & AI Discovery to own organic visibility and AI-driven discovery across a national, multi-location footprint. This is a build role: search is shifting from ten blue links to AI Overviews, generative answers, and zero-click discovery, and CubeSmart needs a leader who can translate that shift into a concrete operating model.

You will set the enterprise SEO and AI-discovery roadmap, stand up the governance and measurement systems to run it, and be the connective tissue between Marketing, IT/Engineering, Analytics, and our SEO agency partners. You'll report to the Sr. Director, Performance Marketing & Web and work in close, standing partnership with the Director of Content & Social Strategy — the two roles jointly own how CubeSmart shows up in search and AI-generated answers, since content and social are the primary levers for earning the visibility and authority signals SEO depends on.

This role is right for someone who has done enterprise, multi-location SEO before (retail, franchise, real estate, or hospitality), has already had to figure out what generative/AI search means for a brand's visibility, and wants ownership of both the strategy and the day-to-day execution engine behind it.

Who We Are

CubeSmart is a publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on the development, acquisition, disposition, and management of self-storage facilities.  CubeSmart is headquartered in Malvern, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia, and is one of the largest self-storage owners and operators in the United States, with more than 1,500 locations nationwide.

Over the past five years, CubeSmart has grown significantly, acquiring approximately $1.5 billion in assets.  Our growth is possible because of our 3,000 teammates across the country who work together to grow the company, serve our Customers, and deliver results through a culture of open communication and collaboration.  We are excited to have you join our team and grow with us!

Enterprise SEO & Organic Growth Strategy

• Own the enterprise SEO and organic discoverability strategy across all digital properties and local market pages.
• Build the long-term roadmap in partnership with IT— prioritized by visibility growth, customer acquisition impact, and effort — and champion it to leadership.
• Establish governance: intake process, prioritization framework, documentation standards, and a repeatable way to say yes or no to competing requests.
• Develop internal capabilities that enable SEO strategy to live in house, with some supplemental consultation/guidance from agency partner.

AI Search & Generative Discovery

• Lead CubeSmart's response to AI Overviews, generative search, and semantic/LLM-driven discovery — including how CubeSmart shows up (or doesn't) in AI-generated answers.
• Track how consumer search behavior is shifting toward zero-click and AI-mediated discovery and quantify the impact on traffic and lead volume.
• Define what "AI-ready" content and structured data look like for CubeSmart
• Evaluate and pilot AI/automation tools that improve SEO efficiency — content briefs, structured data generation, monitoring — with a clear view on what's worth adopting versus hype.

Local SEO & Discovery

• Own local search performance across Google Business Profiles, maps ecosystems, and location pages for CubeSmart's full store footprint.
• Build a scalable approach to location relevance, review/reputation signals, and hyperlocal ranking factors that doesn't require manual, store-by-store effort.
• Adapt the local strategy as AI-driven local discovery (map packs, AI-generated local answers) evolves.

Technical SEO & Cross-Functional Partnership

• Partner directly with the technical SEO and engineering resources embedded in IT to translate business priorities into a shared implementation roadmap.
• Build the recurring cadence (planning, prioritization, retros) that keeps Marketing and IT aligned

Partnership with Content & Social Strategy

• Sit alongside the Director, Content & Social Strategy as a standing planning partner, not a downstream reviewer — SEO and AI-discovery input should shape the content calendar and social strategy at ideation.
• Bring search-intent and AI-consumption data into content and social planning so topics, formats, and publishing priorities are grounded in what customers are actually searching for and how AI systems surface answers.
• Align on a shared view of what earns authority and citations in AI-generated answers — content structure, social distribution, and backlink signals all feed the same discoverability outcome, so these can't be planned in isolation.
• Establish a recurring cadence with Content & Social (planning reviews, performance retros) so internal linking, content briefs, and social amplification are consistently informed by SEO priorities.
• Share ownership of content performance measurement so both teams are accountable to the same visibility and engagement outcomes, not separate scorecards.

Analytics & Performance Measurement

• Define the KPIs and dashboards that give real visibility into SEO and AI-discovery performance — organic sessions and rankings, but also share of voice in AI answers, and downstream lead/occupancy impact.
• Run a real testing program: hypotheses, experiments, and documented results, not one-off changes.
• Monitor algorithm changes, competitive movement, and emerging platforms, and turn that into specific recommendations — not just trend reports.

Team & Vendor Leadership

• Lead and develop the in-house SEO team, with a mandate to grow in-house capability over time.
• Manage the SEO agency relationship end to end: scope, budget, performance accountability, and the decision on what stays in-house versus outsourced.
• Build the accountability structure — clear owners, clear metrics.

Performance Measurement

• Define the KPIs and dashboards that give real visibility into SEO and AI-discovery performance — organic sessions and rankings, but also share of voice in AI answers, and downstream lead/occupancy impact.
• Run a real testing program: hypotheses, experiments, and documented results, not one-off changes.
• Monitor algorithm changes, competitive movement, and emerging platforms, and turn that into specific recommendations — not just trend reports.

Team & Vendor Leadership

• Lead and develop the in-house SEO team, with a mandate to grow in-house capability over time.
• Manage the SEO agency relationship end to end: scope, budget, performance accountability, and the decision on what stays in-house versus outsourced.
• Build the accountability structure — clear owners, clear metrics.

Qualifications

• 10+ years progressive experience leading enterprise SEO or organic growth, including at least 3+ years in a strategic leadership capacity.
• Direct experience with multi-location, franchise, retail, real estate, or hospitality SEO — you understand the difference between a single-site strategy and one that spans hundreds of local pages.
• Hands-on experience adapting SEO strategy for AI Overviews, generative/LLM-driven search, or semantic search.
• Fluency with the working tools of the trade: GA4, Google Search Console, and at least one enterprise SEO platform (e.g., BrightEdge, Botify, Conductor, or seoClarity), plus crawl tools like Screaming Frog.
• Track record building governance and measurement frameworks from scratch — not just operating inside an existing system.
• Demonstrated success partnering with IT/Engineering.
• Experience managing agency or vendor relationships, including budget ownership and performance accountability.
• Strong executive communication — able to translate SEO/AI-search complexity into a business case leaders will act on.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in self-storage, real estate, or another location-based service business.
• Familiarity with structured data implementation, technical SEO audits, and CMS platforms used in enterprise environments.
• Experience standing up or scaling an in-house SEO function during or after an agency transition.
• Exposure to LLM citation tracking, AI answer monitoring, or similar emerging measurement tools.

Why This Role Matters

Search is rapidly evolving beyond traditional SEO into AI-driven discovery experiences that are fundamentally reshaping how customers find, evaluate and engage with brands online.  For CubeSmart, staying visible in both is directly tied to customer acquisition and occupancy growth across our store footprint.

This role will help transform CubeSmart’s search capabilities by building scalable frameworks, strengthening cross-functional execution, modernizing operational processes and positioning the company for the future of AI-driven discovery and organic growth.

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