Overview:
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 transformational build role. Search is no longer defined solely by traditional rankings and website clicks. AI Overviews, generative search, and zero-click discovery are fundamentally changing how customers find brands, while increasingly seamless digital experiences are raising expectations once they arrive. This leader will define CubeSmart's AI-first organic growth strategy while providing executive oversight of SEO, AI Discovery, Web Experience, and CRO, building the operating model, measurement framework, and cross-functional partnerships needed to drive growth from discovery through conversion.
You will create 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!
Responsibilities:
Enterprise SEO & Organic Growth Strategy
-
Define and execute CubeSmart’s organic growth strategy across digital properties, facility pages, and local search experiences to drive customer discovery, engagement, and acquisition.
-
Develop and champion a long-term roadmap in partnership with IT, prioritizing initiatives based on strategic impact, customer value, implementation effort, and expected business outcomes.
-
Establish governance for intake, prioritization, documentation, and decision-making to ensure resources are focused on the highest-impact initiatives.
-
Build and evolve CubeSmart’s in-house SEO capabilities, establishing the strategy, processes, and team expertise needed to drive organic growth while leveraging agency partners for targeted consultation and specialized support.
AI Search & Generative Discovery
-
Lead CubeSmart’s AI discovery strategy, defining how the brand appears across AI Overviews, generative search experiences, and LLM-driven discovery channels.
-
Monitor shifts in consumer search behavior, including the rise of zero-click and AI-mediated discovery, and quantify the impact on organic visibility, traffic, and customer acquisition.
-
Define and operationalize what “AI-ready” content, technical SEO, and structured data look like for CubeSmart, ensuring our digital ecosystem is optimized for emerging search experiences.
-
Evaluate and pilot AI-powered SEO tools and automation opportunities that improve efficiency and scalability, balancing innovation with practical business value.
Local SEO & Discovery
-
Define and lead CubeSmart’s local organic discovery strategy across its full store footprint, ensuring customers can easily find, evaluate, and choose the right storage solution in every market.
-
Build a scalable local search operating model that strengthens location relevance, reputation signals, and market-level visibility while enabling consistent execution across hundreds of facilities.
-
Evolve and own CubeSmart’s local discovery strategy to account for changing customer behaviors, including AI-powered local search experiences, map ecosystems, and emerging discovery channels.
-
Connect local discovery performance to customer acquisition outcomes, partnering with Marketing, Operations, and Analytics to identify opportunities and measure impact.
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.
-
Establish a strong cross-functional operating rhythm with IT, including planning, prioritization, and progress reviews, to ensure SEO opportunities are aligned to business goals and delivered effectively.
Partnership with Content & Social Strategy
-
Sit alongside and partner with the Director of Content & Social Strategy as a strategic planning partner, ensuring SEO and AI-discovery insights influence content strategy, channel planning, and campaign development from the earliest stages of ideation.
-
Integrate search intent, customer behavior, and AI discovery insights into content planning to inform topic selection, content formats, optimization priorities, and publishing strategies based on how customers search and how AI platforms surface information.
-
Develop a shared approach to building authority and visibility across traditional and AI-driven search experiences, recognizing that content quality, structure, distribution, internal linking, social engagement, and external signals collectively influence discoverability.
-
Establish a collaborative operating rhythm with Content & Social, including planning sessions, performance reviews, and optimization discussions, to ensure content creation and amplification strategies are informed by SEO and AI discovery opportunities.
-
Share content performance measurement ownership, so both teams are accountable for the same visibility and engagement outcomes, not separate scorecards.
Analytics & Performance Measurement
-
Define the measurement framework, KPIs, and reporting approach that provide visibility into SEO and AI-discovery performance — combining traditional indicators such as organic visibility and rankings with emerging signals like AI presence, share of voice, and downstream customer acquisition impact.
-
Establish a structured experimentation program that turns insights into action through clear hypotheses, prioritized tests, measurement plans, and documented learnings that continuously improve organic performance.
-
Monitor changes in search behavior, algorithms, competitive landscapes, and emerging discovery platforms, translating insights into actionable recommendations and strategic opportunities rather than passive trend reporting.
-
Connect organic discovery and digital experience optimization by ensuring SEO, AI discovery, Web, and CRO strategies work together to improve the customer journey, from initial search through reservation conversion.
Team & Vendor Leadership
-
Lead and develop the in-house SEO team, building the capabilities, processes, and expertise needed to scale organic growth internally over time.
-
Own the SEO agency partnership strategy, including budget management, scope definition, performance accountability, and ongoing evaluation of what capabilities should remain in-house versus where external expertise adds value.
-
Build the accountability structure, clear owners, and clear metrics.
Qualifications:
- 10+ years of 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.
-
Strong command of SEO measurement, analytics, and technology platforms, including: GA4, Adobe Analytics, Google Search Console, and at least one enterprise SEO platform (e.g., BrightEdge, Botify, Conductor, or seoClarity), and technical SEO 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.
-
Experience with website optimization and experimentation, including partnering with CRO, analytics, and digital teams to improve customer journeys and conversion outcomes.
-
Strong executive communication skills, with the ability to translate complex SEO and AI-search concepts into clear business strategies, investment cases, and measurable outcomes.
Preferred Qualifications
-
Experience in self-storage, real estate, or another location-based service business with complex local discovery needs.
-
Strong understanding of enterprise technical SEO, including structured data, technical audits, site architecture, and CMS platforms supporting large-scale digital experiences.
-
Experience building, scaling, or transforming an in-house SEO function, particularly in partnership with or following an agency-supported model.
-
Exposure to emerging AI search measurement capabilities, including LLM visibility tracking, AI answer monitoring, citation analysis, or other methods for understanding brand presence in AI-driven discovery experiences.
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.
#LI-AB1
#LI-Hybrid
