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What should you look for when hiring someone to lead SEO and AI search?

The title matters less than the evidence. Here’s how to tell a strategist who’ll drive results from someone who’ll hand you a checklist.

Hire for evidence of outcomes and clear thinking, not for the longest list of tactics. The person who will actually move your business can explain how search turns into leads and revenue, prioritizes ruthlessly, works with the team you already have, and will tell you what they won’t do — not just everything they can.

Signals worth looking for

• Outcome stories, not deliverable lists. They talk about what changed for the business, not how many pages they produced.
• Ruthless prioritization. They can name the two or three things that matter and why the rest can wait.
• Measurement fluency. They connect visibility to traffic, leads and revenue, and they’ll tell you what they can’t measure yet.
• Team orchestration. They work with your developers, agency and writers rather than needing to own everything.
• Honesty about AI search. They’re specific about what’s measurable in AI answers and what’s still fuzzy.

Red flags

• Guaranteed rankings or “#1 on Google” promises
• A pitch where more tasks always sounds better than fewer, sharper ones
• No measurement plan tied to business outcomes
• Can’t or won’t say what they’d deprioritize
• Jargon in place of a clear explanation you can repeat to your boss

Five questions to ask in the interview

1. “Walk me through a time your work led to leads or revenue, not just rankings.”
2. “If you had 60 days with us, what would you do first — and what would you ignore?”
3. “How would you measure whether this is working?”
4. “How do you work with our existing developers and agency?”
5. “What can and can’t you measure about AI-search visibility right now?”

Common questions