Academic Designer Jobs in Remote, OR (NOW HIRING)

Department: Marketing / Growth
Location: Remote (U.S.-based candidates preferred)
Employment Type: Unpaid Internship – Academic Credit Only
Compensation: Non-paid. Academic credit available if offered by your university.

⚠️ IMPORTANT — PLEASE READ BEFORE APPLYING
**THIS IS A NON-PAID POSITION. Compensation is academic credit only, facilitated through your university if your program offers it.
**Do NOT apply if you cannot commit to the following:

• 1 weekly meeting with the CliquePrize® Dev team (remote)
• Approximately 2 hours per day on weekdays dedicated to intern responsibilities

You are welcome to work at your own pace within those hours — no rigid schedule is required. However, consistent availability and output are expected.
**Prior SEO experience is required. Applications without demonstrated SEO background will not be considered.

About CliquePrize®

CliquePrize® is an iPhone mobile app built to help local brick & mortar small businesses grow through giveaways and interactive promotions. We connect Sponsors — the local small businesses at the heart of every community — with potential customers through one-click-to-enter giveaways that capture qualified leads (name, email, mobile, and zip code). Those leads become the foundation for offers, coupons, and specials that drive real foot traffic and real revenue for small businesses that need it most. We are a lean, mission-driven team building something meaningful, and we move fast.

About the Role

This is a hands-on, high-impact SEO internship where you will own the organic search strategy for www.cliqueprize.com from research through execution. Your primary mission is to improve the site's visibility for the keyword cluster anchored around "brick & mortar small business marketing" — driving qualified organic traffic from Sponsors who need exactly what CliquePrize® offers. This role is uniquely positioned at the intersection of traditional SEO and the rapidly emerging field of AI search optimization, giving you experience that is directly relevant to where the industry is heading. If you want portfolio-ready work, real accountability, and a genuine skillset to carry into your career, this role delivers all three.

What You'll Do

Content & On-Page Optimization

• Conduct in-depth keyword research targeting "brick & mortar small business marketing" and related semantic clusters, identifying high-opportunity gaps in our current content coverage
• Audit existing website content — articles, landing pages, images, videos, and metadata — and execute targeted optimizations to improve relevance, structure, and ranking potential
• Write and publish SEO-driven articles with strong internal linking architecture that reinforces topical authority across the site
• Rewrite and restructure URLs where necessary to improve crawlability and click-through rates from search results
• Identify underperforming or outdated content and replace or consolidate it with updated, optimized pages that better serve search intent
  

AI SEO & Emerging Search Strategy

• Research and implement strategies specifically designed for ranking within AI-driven search environments, including how tools like Google's AI Overviews, Perplexity, and ChatGPT surface and evaluate sources
• Apply semantic SEO principles and Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) techniques to build contextual depth into content
• Optimize content for structured data markup and entity recognition to improve how search engines categorize and feature CliquePrize® content
  

Technical SEO

• Collaborate directly with the CliquePrize® web developer to diagnose and improve Core Web Vitals — specifically Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Interaction to Next Paint (INP), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
• Work alongside the developer to reduce script bloat and optimize page load efficiency within the Nuxt3 framework, improving both performance scores and crawl budget efficiency
• Create and submit image and video sitemaps to ensure all media assets are indexed and discoverable
  

Off-Page SEO & Authority Building

• Build citations and secure listings across relevant directories and authoritative third-party sources to strengthen domain trust
• Develop and begin executing a white-hat backlink portfolio strategy aligned with CliquePrize®'s brand and audience
• Conduct structured competitor backlink analysis to identify link-building opportunities we are not yet capitalizing on
  

Analytics & Conversion Optimization

• Collaborate with the CliquePrize® Data Analyst to monitor and interpret key performance indicators including: page rank, domain authority, keyword rankings, time on site, pages per visit, and organic lead conversions
• Identify opportunities within the organic funnel to capture more leads from brick & mortar small business owners actively searching for marketing solutions
• Recommend and help implement UX and content improvements — in partnership with the Web Developer — to convert more organic visitors into Sponsor leads
• Use Moz, Ahrefs, and SEMrush (free/trial tiers) to support ongoing keyword tracking, site audits, and competitive research
  

What You'll Bring

Required:

• Demonstrated prior SEO experience — this is non-negotiable; please be prepared to share examples, a portfolio, or results from previous work
• Strong working knowledge of on-page SEO fundamentals: title tags, meta descriptions, header hierarchy, internal linking, and content optimization
• Hands-on experience with keyword research and competitive analysis, including identifying search intent and mapping keywords to content
• Familiarity with white-hat backlink building techniques and an understanding of what makes a link valuable vs. harmful
• Working knowledge of Core Web Vitals and their impact on both rankings and user experience
• Strong writing and research skills — you will be producing real content for a live website, and quality matters
  

Nice to Have:

• Experience working within WordPress, Nuxt3, or Storyblok CMS — our stack includes Nuxt3, so any comfort here will accelerate your ramp-up
• Familiarity with Google Search Console and Google Analytics for interpreting organic performance data
• Experience optimizing video and image content for search, including alt text strategy, file naming, compression, and schema markup
• Academic background in Marketing, Communications, Computer Science, or a related field
  

Why Join CliquePrize®

• Real ownership, real stakes. You are not shadowing someone else's work — you are directly responsible for the SEO strategy of a live, public-facing business website. The results you produce (or don't) will be visible.
• Rare exposure to AI SEO. Most SEO interns optimize for yesterday's algorithm. This role puts you at the frontier of how AI-driven search changes organic visibility — experience that sets your resume apart immediately.
• Cross-functional collaboration. You will work directly alongside a Web Developer and Data Analyst, gaining exposure to how SEO intersects with engineering decisions and performance data in a real product environment.
• Portfolio-ready deliverables. Every article written, every technical fix implemented, and every ranking improvement achieved is yours to document and present. You will leave with tangible, measurable work samples.
• Letter of recommendation. Upon successful completion of the internship, CliquePrize® will provide a letter of recommendation reflecting your specific contributions and demonstrated skills.
• Flexibility with accountability. We respect your schedule — no rigid hours, no micromanagement. We do expect consistent output and a weekly team touchpoint. If you are self-directed and serious about the work, this environment is built for you.