Before You Apply – Please Read

Please apply only if you meet ALL of the following non-negotiable criteria. We receive a high volume of applications and can only consider candidates who match the brief:

- You are resident in the United Kingdom and hold the right to work in the UK. Applications from candidates based elsewhere will not be considered.
- You are fluent in written and verbal English.
- You are educated to university degree level, OR have demonstrable equivalent experience through agency work, apprenticeships or a strong track record of live Craft CMS projects. A degree in computer science, web development or a related field is a plus, but proven hands-on ability weighs more heavily.
- You have hands-on production experience developing and maintaining a Craft CMS website (Craft 4 or 5), including Twig templating and the Craft control panel. Please do not apply if your CMS experience is limited to WordPress, Shopify or similar — Craft is a specific requirement.
- You are comfortable working across the full stack — front-end (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), back-end (PHP within Craft), design mock-ups, SEO, analytics and third-party integrations. This is a broad role, not a specialist one. About the Role

Essenza Escapes is a luxury travel provider specialising in villa rentals and bespoke itineraries in Italy. Our website (essenzaescapes.com) is the front door to our business — where travel agents and direct clients discover our 400+ properties and start conversations that turn into bookings.

We are looking for a Web Manager to take ownership of every aspect of that website: keeping it running, improving it, keeping it visible in search, and keeping it well-connected to the rest of our business systems. You will report to the CEO & COO and work closely with the wider team on content, product data and marketing. This is a hands-on role — you will be writing code and managing the website day-to-day, not managing an agency.

Our website work has historically been outsourced, and we have reached the point where it needs to be brought in-house — for the responsiveness, ownership and continuity it deserves as our business continues to grow.

The engagement structure is open: we are able to offer full-time employment for the right candidate, and can discuss what works best when we meet. Key Responsibilities

Development & maintenance

- Own the day-to-day running of essenzaescapes.com: bug fixes, feature development, small improvements, and browser/device compatibility.
- Keep the platform healthy — Craft core and plugins, PHP, hosting, staging and production environments, deployment workflow (Git-based), backups and disaster recovery.
- Monitor uptime, page speed and Core Web Vitals, and act proactively on issues.

Design & UX

- Produce clean, brand-aligned design mock-ups (Figma or equivalent) for new pages, sections and features before building them — you should be able to visualise a page before you code it.
- Champion the Essenza brand across every page: colour palette, typographic feel, generous imagery, and calm luxury tone.
- Contribute ideas to improve user experience across the site,



from villa listings and enquiry flows to navigation, and support A/B testing where useful.

SEO, GEO & analytics

- Own the technical SEO health of the site: sitemap, robots, structured data (Schema.org), canonical tags, redirects, page speed, mobile-friendliness and crawl errors.
- Support the marketing team on on-page SEO — meta titles, headings, internal linking, keyword targeting — and keep the site aligned with current best practice for Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO): how our content is surfaced by Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, ChatGPT search and similar. This is a fast-moving area and we expect you to stay current.
- Own the analytics stack: Google Analytics 4, Search Console, Tag Manager, Bing Webmaster Tools, and conversion tracking. Ensure GCLID and other attribution parameters flow through to our CRM so paid search performance can be measured accurately.
- Produce a monthly performance snapshot for the leadership team: traffic, key rankings, conversion rates, site health, and what changed.

Products, content & integrations

- Own the loading and maintenance of our properties data on the website — new properties, updates, removals, seasonality, pricing changes, images.
- Manage the connection between the website and our CRM (Zoho), and build and maintain integrations with third-party partners via API where required (analytics platforms, marketing tools, partner APIs). Monitor and act on failures before they become problems.
- Update webpages, copy blocks, destination guides and other content structures as requested by the marketing and travel planning teams.

Security & compliance

- Maintain SSL, HTTPS, security headers and access controls. Keep the site aligned with GDPR and cookie consent requirements. Stay alert to phishing, plugin vulnerabilities and other threats, and act quickly when they appear.

Skills & Experience Required

- Craft CMS in production: at least 2–3 years hands-on with live Craft sites — Twig templating, custom sections and fields, the Craft control panel, and Craft-flavoured PHP (custom modules, plugin configuration, GraphQL where relevant).
- Front-end fundamentals: solid, current HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Comfort with a modern CSS approach (utility-first or otherwise) and vanilla JavaScript. Framework experience (Vue, Alpine or similar) is welcome.
- Design tools: Figma or equivalent, at a level where you can produce clean, brand-aligned mock-ups. Not a full designer, but a good eye.
- SEO, GEO & analytics: practical, current knowledge of technical and on-page SEO (structured data, Core Web Vitals, sitemap/robots strategy); awareness of AI-driven search surfaces and how to be well represented there; and confidence with GA4, Tag Manager, Search Console,



and GCLID/attribution tracking.
- APIs & integrations: confident designing, consuming and maintaining REST APIs — authentication (OAuth, API keys), error handling, monitoring. CRM integration experience is important; ideally Zoho, but any comparable CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce) is fine.
- Engineering discipline: Git and a disciplined branching/deployment workflow; familiarity with a modern PHP host (Servd, Fortrabbit, DigitalOcean or similar); comfort with environment variables, DNS and deployment.
- Communication & autonomy: excellent written English, the ability to explain technical decisions in plain language, and a habit of proactively updating the team. This is a remote role with periodic meetings in London (approximately one a month) and requires real autonomy and a collaborative, no-ego approach. Nice to Have
- Previous experience building or maintaining websites in the travel, hospitality or luxury sector — a real plus.
- Personal knowledge of Italy as a destination, or genuine interest in the country. Our content is Italy-focused, and someone who knows the difference between Puglia and Piemonte will bring more to the role.
- Familiarity with Zoho One (CRM, Books, WorkDrive, Cliq, Sign, Deluge) beyond CRM alone.
- Experience with OTA feed formats (iCal, XML, JSON), channel manager integrations, or A/B testing platforms.
- Interest in AI-assisted development workflows and the use of AI tools to accelerate delivery.

What We

Offer

- A competitive salary in line with industry standards, based on the candidate's profile, plus performance-based bonuses.
- Remote working, based in the UK, with periodic meetings in London.
- Twice-yearly company offsites in the UK and Italy.
- Opportunities to stay in our luxury properties and experience our product first-hand.
- Genuine ownership of a critical part of the business, with the autonomy to shape it, within a warm, ambitious and supportive team. A Note on Salary Estimates

Any salary figures shown on LinkedIn or other job portals are auto-generated estimates and do not reflect the actual package on offer. Please disregard them. How to Apply

This role is advertised exclusively on LinkedIn. To apply, please email your CV to [email protected] with the subject line: "Web Manager application – [Your Full Name]".

We are collecting applications throughout the summer and will begin reviewing and contacting shortlisted candidates from September onwards. If we do not respond straight away, please do not take that as a rejection — we will be in touch in due course. In the body of your email, please answer the following three questions briefly (a few sentences each is plenty):

- Where in the UK are you currently based, and do you hold the right to work in the UK?
- Please share links to two or three live Craft CMS websites you have built or significantly worked on, with a short note on what you did on each.
- Give one concrete example of a website integration or automation you have built (CRM, API, third-party feed), and the impact it had. Applications without answers to these questions will not be reviewed.

📌 Web Manager – Craft CMS, SEO & Integrations (Italia)
🏢 Essenza Escapes
📍 Italia