We are seeking an ambitious Referrals Strategist to join our Digital Experience and Engagement team at ESPN, within our SEO vertical. This role is pivotal in optimizing referral traffic, maximizing audience engagement, and providing actionable insights amid the rise of AI. The Referrals Strategist will play a crucial role in strengthening content visibility, identifying evergreen topics, and discovering new pathways for referral traffic and growth. This is an on-site hybrid role based in our Bristol, CT office.

Responsibilities:

As a Referrals Strategist, you will be responsible for developing and executing strategies to increase traffic from third-party sites, apps, and aggregators. You will collaborate with various teams to optimize digital content for referral platforms and establish best practices for link-sharing. Monitoring referral traffic performance and providing actionable insights to expand overall reach and click-through rates on digital content is essential. This role matters because it directly impacts our ability to engage with our audience effectively and grow our digital presence. Success in this role requires strong analytical skills, excellent communication, and a deep understanding of SEO strategies.

• Develop and execute a referral strategy to increase traffic from third-party sites, apps, and aggregators including Google, Reddit, Quora, SmartNews, Apple News, and other referral platforms.
• Collaborate with audience engagement, editorial, and social teams to optimize digital content for referral platforms and establish link-sharing best practices.
• Monitor referral traffic performance to provide actionable insights that can expand overall reach and click-through-rate on digital content.
• Develop a reporting framework to share key wins and areas for growth with editorial stakeholders and referral partners.
• Work with product team members to test technical solutions that can improve referral performance.
• Synchronize with business development team members to explore new referral opportunities that connect with and build on existing company partnerships.
• Sports is a 24/7 business, night and weekend work will be regular and required.

Qualifications:

• Minimum 5 years of experience in audience development, with a proven track record in SEO strategies for the AI age.
• Experience working with news aggregators, syndication systems, and other third-party referral platforms to grow on-platform traffic.
• Experience with analytics platforms such as Google Search Console, Adobe Analytics, Chartbeat/Parse.ly, and others.
• Skilled in written and verbal communication and relationship building.
• Experience in pinpointing traffic trends within analytics dashboards.
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, data-driven news environment.
• Excellent editorial judgment across different types of content (e.g., breaking news, features, explainers, investigations).
• Bachelor's degree in journalism, digital marketing, or another related field.

Preferred Requirements:

• Genuine passion for sports and eagerness to expand knowledge of the digital media landscape.

Required Education:

• High School Diploma or Equivalent 

Preferred Education:

• Bachelor's Degree in communication arts, journalism or new media or equivalent combination of education experience.

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