Backlink & AI Visibility Specialist

DON'T APPLY IF >>>>> Please read carefully. We would like applicants to have tests, IQ and identity above 80%. Also please submit your best samples as they are factored for alignment with our quality.

Backlink & AI Visibility Specialist (SEO · AEO · GEO)
We're a digital marketing agency specializing in trades and construction businesses, and we're hiring a Backlink & AI Visibility Specialist to build and grow off-page authority for our own brand and our clients' brands — and to make sure those brands are accurately cited and surfaced by AI-powered search engines, large language models (LLMs), and answer engines.
This is a hybrid role that bridges traditional link building with two emerging disciplines: Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). You'll work across multiple client accounts, so you should already have a vetted list of backlink sources and placements you've personally used with success.
Experience: 2–5 years in link building or SEO
Employment type: Full-time (contract options available)
Focus areas: Link building + AEO/GEO + AI search & LLM citation

Core link-building responsibilities

Research and prospect link targets using Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz — but prioritize niche relevance and real editorial traffic over raw DA/DR scores. A relevant link from a trade publication beats twenty links from high-authority sites no one reads
Run journalist-source and digital-PR outreach (email, LinkedIn) using current platforms — Qwoted, Source of Sources (SOS), ---------- , and #JournoRequest on X (HARO/Connectively shut down in Dec 2024; don't rely on it) — to earn guest posts, editorial links, resource-page placements, and press coverage
Conduct competitor backlink analysis to identify gaps and replicate genuinely earnable, high-value opportunities
Monitor backlink profiles, identify toxic links, and submit disavow requests via Google Search Console
Work with the content team to develop linkable assets — original data studies, surveys, infographics, and long-form guides that publishers actually want to cite

Local citations & directory management

Manually build and manage local citations and business directory listings across Canadian and North American platforms — the kind of work a tool like BrightLocal automates, done by hand for accuracy and full control
Set up new accounts and complete listings from scratch where needed, keeping NAP (Name, Address, Phone) data consistent across every directory
Work from a provided master list of target directories for manual entry, and proactively flag additional niche- or region-relevant directories worth adding
Keep listings current over time — updating details, removing duplicates, and verifying entries

AEO, GEO & LLM citation responsibilities

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO): Optimize content to be selected as the direct answer in Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Bing Copilot, Perplexity, voice assistants, and featured snippets
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Ensure our brands, products, and content are accurately represented and cited in outputs from generative AI models including ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini
Audit how — and whether — our brands are cited in LLM outputs (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity) and track citation frequency, accuracy, and sentiment over time
Earn mentions and citations on the sources AI answer engines index most heavily — authoritative publications, industry wikis, Reddit, Quora, and reputable government/educational domains

Note: many of these placements are "no-follow" and won't pass traditional link equity. For AEO/GEO that's expected — the goal is AI citation and entity strength, not PageRank. We want someone who understands that distinction.


Structure content for extraction: lead with a direct 40–60 word answer block, use FAQ schema, speakable schema, and clear entity definitions, and write in an objective, declarative voice (AI engines down-weight "we think / in our opinion" hedging)
Keep content fresh and specific — recency and concrete statistics are heavily weighted, especially by Perplexity, which refreshes near-daily and cites 4–8 sources per answer
Make sure AI crawlers can actually read the page: critical text rendered server-side (not injected by client-side JavaScript), and the right crawler access configured (e.g. OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search eligibility, distinct from GPTBot training access)
Develop and execute digital PR strategies aimed at earning mentions on high-E-E-A-T domains that serve as training and retrieval sources for AI models
Strengthen entity recognition across AI systems by optimizing Knowledge Panels, Wikidata entries, and third-party review platforms (G2, Trustpilot, Clutch)


How we work — our standards (non-negotiables)
Link building in 2026 is about earning citations and trust, not gaming volume. We expect you to:

Earn, don't manipulate. No PBNs, link farms, paid link networks, comment spam, or scaled/automated link schemes. Google's spam updates penalize these, and one bad shortcut can damage a client account we've spent months building.
Manually vet every target. Real editorial standards, real organic traffic, real topical relevance — not just a metric in a tool.
Disclose paid placements with rel="sponsored" where applicable.
Build relationships, not one-offs. Repeat publisher relationships beat cold-blasting templates that editors delete on sight.
Honour the human edit pass. Any AI-assisted outreach or content draft gets a human voice + accuracy review before it goes out. Drafts are never sent or published raw.

How we measure success
This role is tracked against clear outputs, reviewed monthly. You'll work from a shared tracker (provided) and keep it current. Core KPIs:

Links/citations earned — count, by type (editorial, guest, resource, directory, digital PR) and by client
Quality of placements — relevance + real traffic, not just DR/DA
Live link survival rate — placements that stay live and indexed
Citation tracking (AEO/GEO): a monthly prompt audit — run 20–30 buyer-intent prompts per client across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews/AI Mode, logging whether the brand is cited, citation accuracy, and sentiment over time
Local citation health — directory listings live, NAP-consistent, duplicate-free
Toxic-link monitoring — flagged and disavowed as needed

Detailed recurring tasks, cadence, and tracking columns live in the accompanying VA task tracker.

What we're looking for

2–5 years of hands-on link building or SEO experience
A documented track record of placements you can show us (live URLs)
Working knowledge of AEO/GEO is a strong plus; if you don't have it yet, you must be able to learn it fast
Comfortable with high-volume, detail-accurate manual data entry — citation and directory work rewards consistency and care
Honest grasp of what does and doesn't work — e.g., why self-placed Wikipedia links get reverted and how legitimate, policy-compliant entity presence is actually built

Details

Full-time, with contract options available
pay range, weekly hours, and any time zone overlap you require]


How to apply
To be considered, your application must include:

Your 3–5 best link-building or digital-PR samples — live URLs, each with a one-line note on why it mattered. Samples are weighted heavily; they're how we judge fit against our quality bar.
ID Proof and IQ scores of 80% or higher on your profile