About Dave Rohrer
Twenty years of SEO and organic growth (enterprise to startup, in-house to agency) now available as a fractional director and consultant.
I'm Dave Rohrer, a performance-marketing and organic-growth leader with 20+ years building and directing SEO for everything from single-founder startups to Fortune 50 brands.
Most recently I was Director of Audience Management at Yahoo/AOL, where I owned SEO across finance, shopping, and editorial properties and helped grow Google Discover and News from tens of thousands to tens of millions of monthly users. Before that I built an agency SEO practice from scratch, led enterprise SEO for brands like State Farm, Vanguard, and Cabela's, and ran acquisition for a SaaS payroll company through its acquisition by Paychex.
Fifty-plus site migrations, technical SEO on sites with millions of pages, six-figure monthly paid-search budgets. The through-line never changes: connect what people search for to what the business needs, then build the systems and teams that deliver it. I also co-host The Business of Digital podcast (200+ episodes), speak at industry conferences, and judge the US Search Awards.
The career
Principal & Founder
NorthSide Metrics · Chicago
Founded and run a boutique digital-marketing agency serving single-founder startups through enterprise brands: SEO, paid search, migrations, and analytics. Clients include G2, Chewy, and Yello.
Director, Audience Management
Yahoo / AOL · Remote
Owned SEO and organic acquisition across finance, shopping, and editorial properties. Grew Google Discover and Google News from tens of thousands to tens of millions of monthly users, and led the org's move toward AI-driven and generative search.
Head of SEO
Neon Ambition · Remote
Built the agency's SEO practice from zero to five people across a portfolio that grew past 20 clients, and set the delivery standards that let it scale, helping more than double the client base.
SEO Lead
Covario / iProspect · Chicago
Directed enterprise SEO for Fortune 50, IR500, and Global 100 brands: State Farm, Vanguard, Bank of America, Cabela's, Orbitz, and more. Part of the team named OMMA Search Agency of the Year three years running.
Online Marketing Manager
SurePayroll (Paychex) · Glenview, IL
Owned digital acquisition for a SaaS payroll product, growing qualified organic leads 30% a year for four straight years and leading three redesigns and migrations through the company's acquisition by Paychex.
Search Proxy Architect
Netconcepts · Madison, WI
Product owner for GravityStream, an enterprise SEO platform, leading implementations for IR500 retailers including Polo, Pottery Barn, HSN, and Orbitz.
SEO Manager
HowStuffWorks / Consumer Guide · Chicago
Ran SEO across automotive, product, and editorial properties, growing the automotive site past 1.5M monthly users and the product site past 1.2M.
Beyond the day job
Episodes of The Business of Digital podcast: co-hosted, produced, and 40+ guests interviewed.
Conference talks since 2012: Pubcon, SMX, SES, ClickZ, Digital Summit, and MDMC.
OMMA Search Agency of the Year (2011–2013) with Covario. US Search Awards judge.
What I go deep on
- Technical SEO at scaleCrawl, indexation, architecture, and internal linking on sites with millions of pages.
- Site migrations50+ completed: redirects, content, analytics, and post-launch monitoring that protect traffic.
- Enterprise & publisher SEOFortune 50, IR500, and large editorial platforms launching hundreds of thousands of pages a month.
- Content & organic growthStrategy built on real search demand, competitive gaps, and business priorities.
- Analytics & measurementGA4, Search Console, and reporting frameworks that tie organic to revenue.
- AI search & GEOAdapting organic strategy for AI answers, generative search, and answer engines.
Want that experience in your corner?
Book a 30-minute discovery call and we'll figure out whether a fractional director or consultant engagement fits where you are.