Dmitry Koshkin
Verified Expert in Marketing
Marketing Expert
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Toptal member since July 11, 2024
Dmitry is an SEO and content marketing expert with solid experience growing organic traffic and revenue in scale-up and enterprise companies. His expertise—spanning technical and on-page SEO, content strategy, link building, and globalization—is rooted in hands-on work across 50+ sites and leading teams of 20+ specialists. He also collaborates cross-functionally to drive integrated and sustainable growth. At Skyscanner, Dmitry grew organic traffic by 4x and email subscribers by 20x in two years.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Content Marketing Strategy
- Data Analysis
- Link Building
- On-page SEO
- SEO Audits
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Team Leadership
- Technical SEO
Work Experience
Senior Director of SEO
Toptal, LLC
- Increased organic leads by leading a team of 24 SEO and outreach specialists and enhancing content visibility and technical SEO pillars such as internal linking and crawlability.
- Collaborated with growth product, content marketing, and business analytics leaders to embed SEO best practices across multiple functions.
- Implemented a comprehensive suite of SEO KPIs in partnership with the business analytics team, leading strategic analysis and data-driven reporting to senior leadership.
- Managed SEO budgets effectively, optimizing expenditure and improving ROI.
- Contributed to key strategic initiatives, including launching new business verticals and aligning SEO strategies with broader M&A activities.
- Directed and mentored a multinational team, fostering a culture of transparency, safety, data-driven decision-making, and productivity.
Principal Technical SEO and Strategy Lead
Skyscanner
- Generated £58 million in annual revenue by managing the global SEO strategy and reporting for an organic channel, driving 560 million sessions.
- Secured executive team alignment and additional resources for key SEO initiatives, contributing to organic growth surpassing market trends by 6%.
- Defined SEO goals and measurement frameworks, aligning the team's quarterly objectives with company OKRs.
- Collaborated with product and engineering leads to prioritize SEO growth initiatives and resource allocation.
- Spearheaded long-term SEO projects focused on automated keyword research, scalable linking, and enhanced reporting through new metrics and tools.
- Led negotiations with tool providers, securing a budget of approximately £0.5 million for essential SEO tools and resources.
- Directed a cross-functional project with legal and data science teams to address and measure the impact of Google's anticompetitive practices, culminating in an antitrust case presented to the UK and EU authorities.
Growth Lead, Global Technical SEO
Skyscanner
- Led a cross-functional team to build scalable technical SEO foundations for 40 sites with 80 million monthly active users.
- Enriched templates with dynamic content and structured data through internal linking, international targeting, indexation, and crawl effectiveness.
- Facilitated work on data pipeline enhancements to improve holistic visibility of organic channels and support business-wide data-driven decision-making.
- Owned SEO-related metrics, reporting regularly to the executive team and working with multiple stakeholders across the business to achieve cross-channel synergies.
Content Marketing and SEO Manager | Russia and Poland
Skyscanner
- Developed and implemented a content marketing strategy optimized for user acquisition and retention across multiple channels, including SEO, social, email and push, PR, affiliate, and marketing partnerships.
- Recruited and managed a team of freelance writers producing valuable and inspirational content for Russian and Polish audiences.
- Conceived, implemented, and optimized processes for continuous content ideation, creation, and distribution.
- Grew mailing lists from 35,000 to 800,000 users while maintaining the highest open and engagement rates across all managed markets in Skyscanner.
- Expanded the audience of the Skyscanner Features section from 190,000 to 940,000 monthly users.
- Identified growth opportunities and implemented multilingual SEO strategies for Google and Yandex.
- Handled on- and off-site optimization, strengthening domain authority and improving backlink profile.
- Automated SEO content production using simple SQL and Python scripts to develop dynamic templates.
- Improved the Skyscanner app's visibility in Google Play and the App Store by applying app store optimization (ASO) tactics.
- Created a new content vertical from scratch to acquire users in the upper funnel stage. Led a freelance team to craft and maintain content that eventually took over top positions in Google and Yandex and grew from 0 to 150,000 monthly sessions.
Senior Growth Manager, EMEA SEO
Skyscanner
- Developed and implemented an EMEA regional search strategy to improve the organic visibility of 14 domains in multiple search engines, including Google, Yandex, and Bing.
- Led and trained a team of regional SEO specialists to achieve sustainable organic growth for Skyscanner in EMEA.
- Set up a process for experimentation in SEO. Upskilled and enabled teams to design, run, and measure uncontrolled and split tests in SEO and establish a continuous flow of build-measure-learn-scale cycles across the business.
- Revoked legacy manual penalties from several domains, setting up a clean slate for regional teams to grow their markets.
Content Executive
Skyscanner
- Researched, wrote, and translated content for the Skyscanner Russia Features section.
- Produced weekly email newsletters and set up desktop push notifications.
- Developed an editorial schedule to facilitate cross-channel collaboration with social media and PR teams.
Editor and Social Marketing Manager
Gravity Agency
- Led an editorial team handling the social media presence of Coca-Cola Russia.
- Developed the content strategy and conceived, wrote, and edited content for brand profiles on Facebook, VKontakte, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
- Supervised and verified photo and video content published across multiple platforms.
Freelance Travel Writer
Independent
- Built a portfolio of published articles in newspapers, magazines, and websites largely about travel and lifestyle. I was published in offline periodicals, including Forbes Ukraine, XXL Russia, and Sakvoyazh SV, Russian Railway's monthly magazine.
- Wrote copy for social media advertising campaigns for regional branches of major brands like Jaguar, Ford, Land Rover, Suzuki, Dyson, and Coca-Cola.
- Co-founded journeye.com, a travel blog that was eventually nominated for the 2011 Golden Site award in the travel category and voted as one of the top 10 sites in the National Geographic Russia contest for Best Travel Blog in 2012.
Project History
SEO Strategy for an Insurance Comparison Marketplace
Led a project to develop and implement a comprehensive SEO strategy and audit for an insurance marketplace, focusing on keyword optimization, backlink analysis, content enhancement, and technical SEO improvements.
• Conducted keyword research to optimize content and increase visibility.
• Audited the backlink profile and developed a link-building strategy.
• Analyzed page speed and Core Web Vitals, recommending optimizations for faster load times and better user experience.
• Evaluated the internal linking structure to enhance site navigation and boost page authority.
• Developed a content strategy to target key demographics and increase engagement.
• Optimized content templates for SEO effectiveness and consistency across pages.
• Provided recommendations on how to fix errors and improve site crawlability and indexation.
International SEO Strategy for a Global Travel Brand
Led international targeting across 40 domains in 34 languages. Developed a research framework for market expansion, successfully launching new domains and penetrating two new markets.
• Defined the international targeting strategy for a multi-domain, multi-language global travel brand.
• Oversaw the technical implementation of this strategy while supporting the engineering teams.
• Developed a market opportunity assessment framework leveraging internal and external data sources.
• Provided the product teams with a prioritized list of market expansion opportunities.
This collaboration resulted in the launch of new domains that tapped into a new lucrative audience segment while fixing cross-domain SEO cannibalization.
SEO Training Program for In-house Teams
Created and conducted tailored SEO training for a global company, covering various SEO topics. Delivered workshops to ensure adoption, empowering marketing and engineering teams to execute SEO strategies independently.
• Developed and conducted an SEO training program for in-house marketing, product, and engineering teams for a global brand with 1,500+ employees.
• Tailored content to match specific audiences’ needs, from a broader overview focusing on technical aspects of SEO for engineers to an in-depth 5-week course for marketers taking on SEO roles internally.
• Covered a broad range of topics, including keyword research, content optimization, link building, internal linking, page speed optimization, SEO experimentation, and split testing.
• Ran a series of hands-on workshops to ensure effective learning and team adoption of SEO best practices.
• Empowered the broader marketing team to execute SEO strategies independently, leading to sustained improvements in search performance.
Content Marketing and Distribution Strategy for a Travel Brand
Developed a content marketing and distribution strategy and recruited and managed a team to implement it, growing organic traffic by 4x and the email subscriber base by 20x in two years.
• Defined a content marketing strategy, leveraging internal insights and external data sources.
• Developed an editorial process and content publishing schedule for the blog involving key distribution channels like SEO, social media, email, and PR.
• Secured the budget and hired and managed a freelance team of writers and editors.
• Leveraged content outreach and PR to secure hundreds of backlinks organically.
Over two years, traffic to the blog increased from 190,000 to 940,000, and the email subscriber base grew from 35,000 to 800,000 users while maintaining high open and engagement rates.
Revoking Legacy Manual Penalties and Algorithmic Filters
Lifted manual penalties and algorithmic filters across four domains caused by structured data markup violations and spam backlinks.
• Cleaned up spam backlink profiles caused by negative SEO tactics.
• Implemented disavow files to mitigate harmful backlinks.
• Communicated with Google to lift manual penalties.
• Identified and addressed structured data markup violations.
• Restored organic rankings and improved site health.
Education
Associate's Degree in Civil Law
International Solomon University - Kharkiv, Ukraine
Master's Degree in Marketing
National Technical University "Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute" - Kharkiv, Ukraine
Skills
Core
Search Engine Optimization (SEO), On-page SEO, Link Building, Content Marketing Strategy, Marketing Analytics, SEO Audits, Keyword Research, Off-page SEO, Google SEO, SEO Content, Content Marketing, SEO Keyword Research, Email Marketing, B2C Marketing, Marketplace Platforms, Google Ads, Marketing, Marketing Budgeting, Market Research & Analysis, WordPress SEO, Local SEO, App Store Optimization (ASO), Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Platforms & Tools
Ahrefs, Majestic, SearchPilot, Google Analytics, Screaming Frog
Technical
Google Search Console
Other
Technical SEO, Enterprise SEO, Data Analysis, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Content Writing, Team Leadership, Data Reporting, Keyword Mapping, Marketing Reports, Split Testing, Core Web Vitals, Website Audits, Training, Presentations, Workshops, International SEO, Growth Marketing, Competitive Analysis, Market Research, Growth Strategy, Executive Presentations, SEO Penalty Recovery, Information Architecture (IA), SEO Writing, SEO Outreach, Semrush, Google Docs, Microsoft Office, Hiring, Interviewing, Strategic Planning & Execution, Stakeholder Management, Distributed Team Management, Management, Mentorship & Coaching, User Retention, Editorial Process, Translation, Page Speed Optimization, SimilarWeb, Launch Strategy, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), Jira, Slack, Confluence, ChatGPT, Agile Project Management, Civil Law, Digital PR, Push Notifications
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