Learn all about the search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques that can give your careers website visibility with candidates searching for information and opportunities relevant to your organisation.
70% of job searches begin on Google. So, to give your organisation the best chance of attracting the right candidates, you need your careers site to be as visible as possible on search engines. Seach Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a way to achieve that. It’s the collective term for techniques that boost the search performance of a website. In this blog, we’ll look at SEO techniques you can use to boost the visibility of your careers site so that it can attract the best candidates in your industry—including those who aren’t currently active in looking for a new role.
I want to climb the search rankings
SEO has always been a bit of a dark art. But amid all the speculation around exactly how Google ranks websites, one thing’s for certain: you can’t cheat your way to a high search ranking. Now more than ever before, websites must earn their ranking by providing good quality experiences to users. That makes things like good site design, quality information and publishing engaging and relevant on-page content super important to careers site SEO strategy.
Also important in modern SEO is E-E-A-T, which stands for Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trust and is a set of criteria that Google uses to evaluate the quality of your site content. Google deems content to be high in E-E-A-T when it has been produced by a reputable source, gains attention and backlinks and appears on a well-maintained, secure site. E-E-A-T isn’t a direct ranking factor, but as a measure of the general reputation of your site, it’s still crucial if you want to send positive signals to Google—which, after all, is the essence of SEO.
I want to climb the search rankings
Your SEO journey starts here:
User-friendly layout. Sites that make information easy to find will rank higher. When candidates make logical journeys through your careers site, consuming content and even applying for vacancies, it tells Google that you offer good user experiences. A well-thought-out site design also makes it easier for Google to crawl and index your content. Both are important to your search ranking. You can use Google Analytics to track site visits and make adjustments that make your site more user- and Google-friendly.
Internal linking. You can steer candidates on their journey through your site using internal links. These are links to other pages on your site that usually come in the form of hypertext. You can boost the performance of lower-performing pages by linking them to your higher-performing pages. This also further boosts the performance of the higher performing pages by bolstering their authority. A logical internal links network also makes it easier for Google to assess the structure of your site. All of which are important for SEO.
Descriptive URLs and meta tags. Your URLs and meta tags should be aligned with page content. This helps Google understand the relevance of page content. The better you signpost the relevance of your page content, the more likely you are to rank higher.
Mobile-friendly design. A study by Indeed found that 62% of people use their mobile phone to search for job opportunities, making it crucial that your careers site offers excellent experiences to mobile users. That’s especially important in sectors like retail and hospitality where candidates are more likely to search for jobs on their phone. Optimising your careers site for mobile will make it more visible to the increasing number of candidates in all sectors who use their mobile to find jobs.
I want to climb the search rankings
Getting to the top spot for Google searches means cultivating E-E-A-T. There are some basic steps you can take to do this, such as creating an About Us page, ensuring security certificates are up to date and including testimonials that vouch for your authenticity and quality as an employer. To take E-E-A-T to search-topping levels though, you need to cultivate your employer reputation through great content.
Content is a way to show candidates that you have value for them as an employer. Creating engaging content rich in E-E-A-T starts with getting to know your audience in more detail. Focus groups with your existing employees can help you discover the general interests, ambitions and pain points of people who do well at your company. The aim is to discover the kind of things they might search online and create content that might appear in the search results of, and appeal to, people who will be a similarly good fit for your company. This boosts E-E-A-T by establishing your subject area authority and making you the go-to source of trusted information on topics relevant to your audience.
Publishing content and distributing it through social media platforms helps you to build an audience and create an online buzz. Though social media clout doesn’t directly affect your Google ranking, the traffic that results from it certainly can. Quality, internally linked content helps you make the most of that traffic by increasing the potential for valuable multi-page user journeys that send positive signals to Google and boost your ranking. As your subject area authority grows, you can also attract backlinks from other content creators who look to you as a reputable source.
The more quality content you produce, whether that’s blog posts, podcasts, eBooks or videos, the more you will build your subject area authority with audiences and search engines. You’ll also boost the reputation of your content creators. That’s where personal branding comes into SEO. Because the more your content creators establish their expertise (by posting on LinkedIn, guest posting and generally being visible within the industry), the more authority their content will have.
SEO is a process of making your website matter to Google. By taking the holistic approach to SEO outlined in this post, you’ll ensure you matter to both Google and, most importantly, to the candidates that your increased search engine visibility will bring to your careers site.
I want to climb the search rankings
Genius Group Limited
The Watermill
Broughton Hall
Skipton
BD23 3AG
01756 701222
hello@thegeniusgroup.co.uk
