Sr. Spclst , GEO Content

Merck • North Wales, PA

2d • $117,000 - $184,200 • Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Specialist, GEO Content supports our Company's GEO & AI Discoverability program within the Web Experience & Discovery Product Team by advising global brand and marketing teams on how to structure, optimize, and govern approved content so that it is more findable, understandable, and citable by generative AI and answer engine platforms. This role connects content decisions to AI visibility and citation outcomes. The successful candidate will partner closely with analysts within the broader Digital Channels & Orchestration team to review AI discoverability performance across global HCP and consumer websites, conduct GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) content audits, identify content gaps and citation opportunities, and translate findings into actionable recommendations for brand and marketing teams. Key stakeholders are global brand and marketing teams. This role operates at the intersection of content strategy, AI discoverability, performance analysis, and compliance-aware content governance across markets. This role exists because AI systems now influence how HCPs, patients, and healthcare consumers discover, evaluate, and act on health information. For our Company's brands to be represented accurately and consistently by AI platforms, content must be structured, evidence-based, clear, consistent, and governed in ways that support AI discoverability. The Senior Specialist, GEO Content closes that gap by embedding AI discoverability discipline directly into brand and marketing content processes. This role helps teams understand how content choices affect AI visibility, where citation gaps exist, and how approved content can be improved before it goes to MLR review, before it is published, and before AI systems decide whether to reference it.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, Communications, Digital, Life Sciences, Business, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• 3+ years of experience in content strategy, SEO, digital marketing, brand content, content governance, or a related discipline, with practical understanding of how content structure affects search and AI platform performance.
• Strong understanding of content strategy, content optimization, and how AI search platforms retrieve, summarize, and cite information.
• Familiarity with AI search platforms including ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, or similar answer engine experiences.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret SEO and AI visibility data, identify content gaps, and translate findings into prioritized recommendations.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to advise non-technical brand and marketing teams on AI-friendly content practices.
• Proven ability to work across cross-functional teams in a global, matrixed organization.
• Experience supporting content review, content governance, advisory, or enablement activities within a regulated or compliance-sensitive environment.
• Strong ability to translate complex AI discoverability concepts into practical guidance for brand, marketing, and medical stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in pharmaceutical, healthcare, or life sciences digital marketing, including familiarity with MLR review processes, fair balance requirements, and promotional versus non-promotional content boundaries.
• Hands-on experience with AI visibility, SEO, or content performance tools such as SEMrush, Google Search Console, BrightEdge, or equivalent platforms.
• Familiarity with GEO practices, including ghost brand assessment, AI citation analysis, entity consistency, content gap analysis, and answer engine visibility monitoring.
• Understanding of HCP versus consumer audience segmentation and the content governance implications for each in a regulated environment.
• Experience supporting global or regional content programs across multiple markets with varying regulatory and approval requirements.
• Exposure to scientific, medical, professional body, patient advocacy, or other authoritative third-party content ecosystems.
• Experience creating content guidance, playbooks, training materials, or working sessions for brand and marketing teams.

Responsibilities

• Advise brand and marketing teams on structuring content for AI citability, including answer-first content flow, clear claims, evidence-based structure, fact density, source clarity, and easy-to-parse formats such as FAQs, summaries, bullets, and tables.
• Review content briefs, page drafts, FAQs, and priority content assets against GEO content standards before MLR submission, identifying content structure, clarity, or evidence gaps that may limit AI discoverability or citation potential.
• Guide teams in shifting content style from broad marketing prose to clearer, evidence-based, question-led formats that AI platforms are more likely to understand and reference, without altering approved messaging.
• Partner with medical affairs and regulatory teams to distinguish content restructuring from net-new content creation, ensuring GEO recommendations remain aligned with approved claims, fair balance, and compliance expectations.
• Advise on content consistency across brand, disease, mechanism, and audience-facing materials to support clearer entity recognition and more consistent representation across AI-generated answers.
• Provide recommendations on how content can better address the questions HCPs, patients, and healthcare consumers are likely to ask through AI search and answer engines.
• Conduct GEO content audits across priority brands and markets, including ghost brand assessment, AI visibility review, content structure analysis, message clarity review, and content gap assessment.
• Perform AI-focused keyword and query research to identify the questions HCPs, patients, and healthcare consumers are asking AI platforms, and map these questions to existing content assets and gaps.
• Monitor AI citation share of voice, brand presence, AI Overview visibility, and answer engine representation using available GEO, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and analytics tools.
• Report visibility gaps, competitor benchmarks, and content opportunities to brand, marketing, and digital stakeholders.
• Track off-platform citation signals, including coverage in scientific publications, professional body materials, patient advocacy sources, and other authoritative third-party content sources.
• Provide recommendations to strengthen authoritative content presence and improve the likelihood that our Company's content is accurately represented or cited in AI-generated answers.
• Identify content opportunities to improve answer quality, citation relevance, brand presence, and consistency of representation across AI search experiences.
• Deliver market-level and brand-level audit findings in formats suited to regional marketing and brand teams, prioritizing recommendations by business value, customer relevance, compliance feasibility, and implementation effort.
• Translate GEO audit outputs into practical content recommendations that brand and marketing teams can use to improve AI discoverability while staying within approved messaging and governance boundaries.
• Develop content guidance for answer-first content structure, evidence placement, FAQ development, claim clarity, source referencing, content freshness, and consistency of terminology.
• Support the development of GEO content standards, market-level publishing checklists, and MLR-aware content guidance across regions.
• Partner with brand and marketing teams to define content remediation plans based on AI visibility findings, content gaps, and priority customer questions.
• Help ensure GEO content recommendations are practical, scalable, and aligned with market workflows, approval processes, and regulatory expectations.
• Act as a GEO content practitioner embedded within brand and marketing workflows, serving as a key point of contact for AI discoverability and content optimization questions from brand teams.
• Develop and deliver enablement materials, guides, playbooks, and working sessions to help brand, marketing, and medical affairs teams build practical GEO content competency.
• Apply repeatable AI search readiness assessment methods across inline and pipeline brands, including ghost brand assessment, prompt and query analysis, baseline AI visibility review, and content opportunity mapping.
• Partner with brand and marketing teams to build internal GEO capability, translating assessment outputs into content actions that teams can apply independently over time.
• Collaborate with analysts, web teams, and external partners to ensure content recommendations are informed by performance data and can be appropriately reflected in content planning and publishing workflows.
• Contribute to governance documentation supporting GEO content standards, market-level publishing checklists, and MLR workflow alignment across regions.

Benefits

• medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family)
• retirement benefits, including 401(k)
• paid holidays
• vacation
• compassionate and sick days
• annual bonus
• long-term incentive

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior