Best Recruitment Website SEO Tips!

Best Recruitment Website SEO Tips!

Here at Manchester SEO we know that with the online culture these days, making sure your recruitment agency appears in the top search results is essential. But prime Google rank positioning is very competitive and can be also very costly. While you can achieve prime position with a pay-per-click (PPC) programme, but the cost of these highly competitive keywords make is almost not worth it and makes recruitment agencies start to consider a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategy instead.

From keywords, mobile optimising, site structure, content and social media, here are some simple SEO tips that can push an your recruitment website up the Google SERPs rankings.

Why Are The Basics Still Important?

For anyone outside IT or marketing, Search Engine Optimization may look to be a bit of a magic box that you may not understand fully. The reality of good, solid, future proof SEO can be very different to that and give great results. It includes activities like making technical changes to a website to make it easy for Google to read, creating great content that people will want to read and find interesting. Google in its grace also provides a basic set of rules that, if followed correctly, can significantly improve the rank success of  your website.

What Are Optimal Recruitment Keywords?

Understanding what candidates search for when looking for a new job is paramount to getting the right keywords – and as usual it means "keep it simple". There is no point using keywords that no one will ever search for. Industry specific and geographic terms are clearly a good option – a candidate is likely to search for ‘Restaurant jobs in Manchester’, but it is also worth considering options for less popular, but still standard keywords.  Before starting it is worth checking out where the agency sits in the Google rankings today – and use this benchmark to assess performance improvements as keywords are optimised on the website.

Examples of types of recruitment searches on google:

Type	Example	Comments
Generic	“Hospitality Jobs recruitment consultancy”	These phrases tend to describe the recruitment business at its highest level and should be applied to the homepage.
Industry / Sector Specific	“Restaurant Jobs”	These phrases need to be applied to their own specialist area (page) on the site. Create a set of pages that represent each industry sector you operate in to capture search queries for sector phrases relevant to you.
Job Title Specific	“Hotel Manager Jobs”	High competition phrases that need their own page creating (you need to capture this traffic) but are categorised under a specific industry sector.
Long tail terms	“Chef jobs in London”	People search for jobs using modifiers by location, qualification and all sorts so your keyword strategy needs to include optimised vacancy pages to capture this traffic. You can’t optimise for every single keyword, so it’s wise to make sure as much relevant information is added to the job page as possible.

Below is a video talking about keyword research using ahrefs tools:

Why We Use Meta descriptions and meta titles?

Meta data including meta titles and meta descriptions play an important role in educating and informing the audience, its important not to over optimise here as google will actually penalise you for it. Meta titles, which show the name of the web page at the top your browser, these should be based on the industry your business is in and fairly generic, but relevant to what is on the whole of the web page. 

Meta descriptions, according to google are not directly used for ranking, but should provide clarity as to what is on your page can often be the difference to some one clicking on your site, even if it is below them in the rankings.

Why Be Different To The Other Recruitment Sites?

Now the basics are done it is time to get your brains working and your creative juices flowing. While the short tail search terms – such as ‘Manchester Jobs’ – are important, they are also competitive, so think about what other search terms your candidates might use and include them. These can be much longer (i.e. long tail search terms) such as ‘How do I find a job in London’ – and then evaluate the Analytics to see if this is something your are ranking for and people are searching for.

While short terms should appear on the home and main pages – use blogs and eBooks to optimise for these longer tail terms. Even if the agency doesn’t always show up in Google for the main page, blog posts optimised for longer terms provide a great chance of being found.

Why Create Amazing Content?

To attract a user and potential candidate, a website needs to include great, informative, useful and educational content. Using a blog isn't always the easiest way to do this. It can cover so many different subjects that are relevant to both employers and candidates and reinforce your agency’s industry and subject matter credibility. This will include topics like, interview technique, how to write a CV and/or cover letter and the latest data for salaries and benefits packages. 

Above all remember that for your candidates and google content has to be fresh and up to date.

Why Recruitment Agencies Should Use Social Media?

Social media is a great way to get new content out into market and interact with your recruitment community of client, candidates, potential clients. 

Social media like SEO is a commitment and not just for Xmas 🤣. Sign up for the different platforms gradually over time Don’t sign up for LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and a YouTube channel over time, and keep them up to date as much as you can. You can automate a lot of posts so this maybe a tactic you may like to employ. 

Why be Mobile friendly?

Due to a job listing functionality required it makes many sites very poor at their mobile compatibility, which as we know now that Google is more than ever a mobile first organisation, this can be a game changer for you as a business and your search rankings! Candidate behaviour indicates that many look at jobs on the train or at home while on their tablets and mobile phones, therefore if your site doesn't provide a good experience for them using these devices, then they are less likely to use your site.

                               

Why look from a candidate's point of view?

Having invested time and effort in ensuring candidates find the agency’s website, it is essential to ensure a slick, efficient online experience once they arrive. The best way to achieve that is to experience the website journey from the perspective of a candidate and test the experience.