Principal Associate, SEO/GEO Marketing Strategist | Retail Bank

Principal Associate, SEO/GEO Marketing Strategist | Retail Bank

Founder-led by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Richard Fairbank, Capital One is on a mission to help customers succeed by bringing ingenuity, simplicity, and humanity to banking. Capital One is consistently ranked on several Best Workplaces Lists, including Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For.” 

The Capital One Consumer Bank Marketing team is a growing group looking to bring in a new SEO & GEO Marketing Principal Associate. Our team is on the forefront of SEO & GEO strategy across the Capital One Enterprise, we’re constantly evolving to meet the shifting demands of the digital marketing landscape, and we’re having fun with our wide-ranging partners while we’re doing it.

Key Responsibilities:

• Management of Agency Partners: Day-to-day management of digital marketing agency, including building and iterating on meeting agendas, compiling takeaways and action items, communicating leadership messages to partners and handling all scheduling and logistics
• Holistic Organic Strategy: Develop and execute comprehensive organic visibility strategies that bridge traditional search engine optimization (SEO) with emerging generative engine optimization (GEO) to maximize brand presence across search engines and AI chat interfaces.
• Conversational & Intent-Based Research: Partner with digital marketing agency on advanced keyword, entity, and conversational query research to inform content roadmaps that satisfy both traditional search intent and the natural language prompts used in AI overviews (like Google SGE, Perplexity, and ChatGPT).
• Technical & Semantic Optimization: Translate technical site audits from digital marketing agency into actionable briefs for the Site Ops/Content teams to ensure optimal crawlability, indexability, and the flawless implementation of advanced schema markup/structured data to help AI models easily parse and cite site content.
• E-E-A-T & Digital PR: Drive initiatives to establish and amplify brand E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), securing high-quality backlinks, unlinked brand mentions, and authoritative citations vital for traditional ranking and LLM inclusion.
• Content Auditing & AI Adaptation: Regularly audit existing content libraries to identify performance decay, continuously optimizing legacy pages for semantic relevance, answer-box capture, and inclusion in generative AI summaries.
• Performance Analytics & Reporting: Translate complex data from performance analysis reports and monitoring tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and enterprise SEO platforms (e.g., Ahrefs) into actionable strategic pivots. 
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Partner closely with content marketing, PR, product, and UX/UI teams to ensure SEO/GEO best practices and architectural considerations are integrated into all digital initiatives from the ground up.
• Algorithm & Landscape Monitoring: Stay at the absolute forefront of search engine algorithm updates, AI search rollouts, and changing LLM behaviors, designing controlled tests to understand how generative engines cite sources and adapting tactics accordingly.
• Well-Managed Governance: Manage marketing creative review processes in workflow management systems; Flawlessly execute a well-managed governance process to ensure audit readiness for all consumer-facing marketing assets

A great candidate:

• Translates complex data into clear, cohesive narratives, proactively tailoring messages and altitude to effectively align diverse audiences and stakeholders.
• Anticipates external and internal needs by viewing challenges from a "customer-backed" perspective, actively leveraging insights to design solutions that elevate the end-user experience.
• Builds trust and consensus across partner teams without relying on formal authority, utilizing subject matter expertise and data to constructively push boundaries and drive strategy forward.
• Thrives in ambiguous "white space" environments by connecting dots across the organization to frame problems, devise actionable solutions, and build reusable frameworks.
• Successfully navigates a matrixed organization to problem solve, make decisions and deliver work
• Balances near-term execution with long-term strategy, demonstrating integrative thinking to prioritize high-leverage work and thoughtfully anticipate alternative scenarios.
• Autonomously manages strategic workstreams end-to-end, delivering high-quality, in-market results while building sustainable, well-managed operational processes.
• Fosters an inclusive, solutions-oriented environment by actively building cross-team relationships, sharing institutional knowledge, and elevating the broader team's capabilities.
• Swiftly pivots and maintains momentum when business priorities shift, quickly upskilling on new capabilities and applying fresh research methods to optimize workflows.
• Consistently integrates core company values into daily interactions, acting as a positive catalyst for team morale, embracing continuous feedback, and participating in broader organizational culture building.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree or military experience
• At least 4 years of digital marketing experience
• At least 4 years of experience using G-Suite
• At least 4 years of experience with Google Analytics and Google Marketing Platform products

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in agile marketing principles
• 5+ years of digital marketing experience
• Experience working with Google Search Console, Data Studio, STAT, or SEMRushData

This role is designated as a hybrid position. You are expected to adhere to Capital One's hybrid policy regarding required on-site presence at your designated office location.

At this time, Capital One will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization, or offer any immigration related support for this position (e.g. H1B, F-1 OPT, F-1 STEM OPT, F-1 CPT, J-1, TN, E-3, and O-1, or any other forms of work authorization that require immigration support from an employer)

The minimum and maximum full-time annual salaries for this role are listed below, by location. Please note that this salary information is solely for candidates hired to perform work within one of these locations, and refers to the amount Capital One is willing to pay at the time of this posting. Salaries for part-time roles will be prorated based upon the agreed upon number of hours to be regularly worked.

McLean, VA: $120,800 - $137,900 for Principal Associate, Marketing Wilmington, DE: $109,900 - $125,400 for Principal Associate, Marketing

Candidates hired to work in other locations will be subject to the pay range associated with that location, and the actual annualized salary amount offered to any candidate at the time of hire will be reflected solely in the candidate’s offer letter.

This role is also eligible to earn performance based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonus(es) and/or long term incentives (LTI). Incentives could be discretionary or non discretionary depending on the plan.

Capital One offers a comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial and other benefits that support your total well-being. Learn more at the Capital One Careers website. Eligibility varies based on full or part-time status, exempt or non-exempt status, and management level.

This role is expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days. No agencies please. Capital One is an equal opportunity employer (EOE, including disability/vet) committed to non-discrimination in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Capital One promotes a drug-free workplace. Capital One will consider for employment qualified applicants with a criminal history in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable laws regarding criminal background inquiries, including, to the extent applicable, Article 23-A of the New York Correction Law; San Francisco, California Police Code Article 49, Sections 4901-4920; New York City’s Fair Chance Act; Philadelphia’s Fair Criminal Records Screening Act; and other applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations regarding criminal background inquiries.

Capital One does not provide, endorse nor guarantee and is not liable for third-party products, services, educational tools or other information available through this site.

Capital One Financial is made up of several different entities. Please note that any position posted in Canada is for Capital One Canada, any position posted in the United Kingdom is for Capital One Europe and any position posted in the Philippines is for Capital One Philippines Service Corp. (COPSSC).