Head of SEO (Porto/Hybrid)

Winalist is an all-in-one platform that connects wine enthusiasts with unique, curated wine experiences around the world. Our value proposition centers on convenience, variety, and exclusivity. We aggregate vineyards, wine-tasting sessions, tours, and wine-related events on a single platform, allowing customers to discover and book these experiences in a few simple clicks. Furthermore, our algorithm offers personalized recommendations based on user preferences, thereby enhancing customer satisfaction and encouraging repeat business.

Travelers from all over the world can easily book a visit to cellars in Champagne, a tasting workshop in Burgundy, a stroll through the vineyards in Bordeaux, etc.

Today Winalist has partnered with around 2,000 wineries and offers 4000+ experiences in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and in the US.
We are looking for new talents to help us build the next leader in wine tourism.

Strategy & Leadership

• Own the global SEO strategy and roadmap, tied to commercial KPIs (qualified traffic, bookings, GMV) — not vanity metrics.

• Define priorities and arbitrate resources across markets, channels and page types; report performance and forecasts to leadership.

• Manage and coordinate content teams, freelancers and agencies; brief, review and hold them to SEO standards.

• Partner cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, Marketing and PR to embed SEO into the roadmap.

International & Multilingual SEO

• Drive keyword and market research across all locales (FR/EN/NL/IT/ES/PT/DE), adapting strategy to each market's search behavior and competitive landscape.

• Own international SEO architecture: hreflang, ccTLD/subfolder strategy, geo-targeting, content localization vs. translation decisions.

Programmatic & Marketplace SEO

• Design and scale silo architectures (region / city / experience) and internal linking across thousands of estate and product pages.

• Optimize both demand-side (destination, blog, editorial) and supply-side (estate/offer) pages.

• Build templated, scalable page systems with content and product teams rather than one-off optimization.

Technical SEO

• Audit and optimize site architecture, crawl budget, site speed (Core Web Vitals) and mobile.

• Resolve crawl errors, broken links, duplicate content, indexation and canonicalization issues.

• Own structured data and feeds: schema markup, Google Things to Do, and other rich-result/feed integrations.

AI Search (AEO/GEO)

• Optimize for visibility and citations in AI search (AI Overviews, LLMs); track and grow share of voice in AI-generated answers.

Link Building & Off-Page

• Develop and execute a white-hat link-building strategy focused on quality, relevant backlinks.

• Leverage PR, partnerships and institutional ties (wine industry, tourism bodies) to acquire authority links.

Analytics & Reporting

• Measure performance via GA4, Search Console, Ahrefs and BigQuery; build dashboards tied to revenue, not just rankings.

• Translate data into prioritized actions; run experiments and report on impact.

Requirements

• Proven SEO leadership, ideally in marketplace, travel, e-commerce or multilingual environments.

• Strong technical SEO + programmatic/at-scale experience.

• Comfortable with data (GA4, GSC, Ahrefs/SEMrush; BigQuery a plus) and with briefing/managing content teams.

• International SEO expertise; additional languages a plus.

• Experience: 2+ years of proven experience in SEO, preferably in the travel, hospitality, or e-commerce industries.

• Technical Expertise: In-depth knowledge of SEO tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, Moz, Screaming Frog, or similar.

• Analytical Skills: Proficiency in Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and other analytics tools.

• Content SEO: Strong understanding of keyword optimization, content marketing, and on-page SEO techniques.

• Technical SEO Knowledge: Experience with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for SEO purposes is a plus.

• Languages: Fluent in English; knowledge of French or other European languages is advantageous.

• Detail-Oriented: Strong organizational skills with an eye for detail and a passion for data-driven decisions.

• Passion for Travel & Wine: A genuine interest in wine culture and tourism is highly desirable.