SEO & AEO Manager

We Impact Lives Through Purpose-Driven Work in A People First Culture

Ascend Learning, a leading healthcare and learning technology company, is the connection between a powerful portfolio of brands serving students, educators, and employers with outcomes-based, data-driven solutions across the lifecycle of learning. From testing to certification, Ascend Learning products are used by physicians, emergency medical professionals, nurses, allied health professionals, certified personal trainers, financial advisors, skilled trades professionals and insurance brokers.

Headquartered in Burlington, MA, with additional office locations and hybrid and remote workers in cities across the U.S., Ascend Learning was recognized by Newsweek and Plant-A Insights Group as one of America’s 2025 Greatest Workplaces as well as America’s Best Places to work for Mental Well-Being for 2025.

We’re always looking for talented, passionate professionals to join us in our mission to help change lives. If this sounds like an environment where you’d thrive, read on to learn more.

As the SEO/AEO Manager, you will own and advance organic search and answer engine presence across Ascend Learning’s portfolio of healthcare brands, including ATI Nursing Education, NHA (National Health career Association), Board Vitals, Med Hub, NursingCE, APEA, Kognito, Staff Garden, Jones and Bartlett Learning, Public Safety Group, Click Safety and Clover Learning. You will operate as a senior individual contributor and in-house authority on both traditional SEO and emerging Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) / Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), partnering closely with Content Strategy, Martech Dev, eCommerce, Demand Generation and Paid Media teams across the healthcare segment.

This role requires a strategic, analytically rigorous practitioner who can independently craft and execute search strategies that fuel discoverability, engagement, and conversion across multiple platforms and brands, including AI-driven search environments. You will be the subject matter expert who ensures Ascend’s healthcare brands stand out in a competitive landscape where students, clinicians, and healthcare employers are increasingly turning to AI-powered tools to find licensure prep, certification, and continuing education resources.

This position works hybrid from Ascend's Leawood, KS or Burlington, MA office. Remote candidates in the United States will be considered.

• Develop and independently execute comprehensive SEO and AEO strategies across Ascend’s healthcare brand portfolio, improving organic search rankings, answer engine visibility, and AI-cited content to drive web traffic and enrollment/certification conversion.
• Own keyword and question research spanning nursing education, allied health certification, medical board exam prep, continuing education, and healthcare workforce development, including both traditional search queries and conversational/AI-generated queries (featured snippets, People Also Ask, AI Overviews, ChatGPT citations); identify opportunities to outperform competitors across every category in which Ascend’s healthcare brands compete.
• Optimize web content across multiple brand sites, including meta tags, headings, URLs, schema markup, structured data, and on-page elements, for both traditional search engines and answer engines; deliver gap analyses and actionable optimization recommendations to brand content and dev teams.
• Monitor and report on keyword rankings, organic traffic, click-through rates, featured snippet capture, AI citation frequency, and other SEO/AEO metrics across all healthcare brand properties; translate data into clear insights and iterate rapidly.
• Analyze website performance using tools such as SEMrush, Screaming Frog, Gumshoe.ai, Google Search Console, and Google Analytics 4; proactively identify areas for improvement across the healthcare brand portfolio and measure the impact of initiatives.
• Serve as the internal subject matter expert on SEO and AEO best practices for the healthcare segment, educating and aligning content, creative, eCommerce, and front-end dev teams so…