The Ultimate SEO Guide for Career Sites

Expert SEO Guide: Effective SEO Campaign Tips for Career Websites 

According to SHRM’s (Society for HR Management’s) 2024 Talent Trend Report, over three-quarters of organizations are finding positions challenging to fill. If you’re experiencing the same problems, know that you’re not alone. However, what can you do about it, and what effective SEO tips are best for someone in your position? 

One of the biggest issues many companies face today is a lack of online visibility. They have not optimized their career website to focus on search engine optimization (SEO), meaning that when people search for the types of careers they offer, the site simply doesn't appear early on Google's search engine results page.  

If you want to improve your SEO, you may need some tips for mastering your SEO campaigns effectively. The following advice should offer everything you need to increase your engagement organically and boost your employer brand without paying for adverts.  

Focus on Valuable Content for a Long-Term Recruitment Boost 

A strong SEO foundation is one of the best ways to influence candidate behavior and attract candidates seeking the jobs you offer. It ensures that people come to your careers website without needing to engage with Google Ads or other paid marketing, delivering greater long-term return on investment compared to paid promotion. 

The process involves developing content both on your own careers website and externally. While you may think that creating a higher volume of content is the answer, this is not always true. Instead, ensuring that your career website offers real value can help bring potential candidates in multiple times over a longer period. 

For example, Canva offers several resources to potential candidates, including clear and concise guidance that answers common candidate queries. This information includes: 

• Key skills companies look for 

• How to make a resume stand out 

• Canva's methods of training and improvement 

• Their goal-setting philosophy 

• Employment benefits and how they decided on them 

• Blog posts centered on the larger industry 

By creating job information that benefits applicants, Canva promotes itself as a positive influence in the broader industry. This effort makes Google see the company as a key industry leader, ranking it higher in SERP EEAT. As these are Google's key areas for judging other companies, appealing to their tenets is crucial to being seen online. 

These pages also encourage people to apply for roles at their company as they promote Canva as a good employer. New applicants will also apply using Canva's advice, making it more likely that they will be transparent and open during the application process. 

Conduct Targeted Keyword Research to Capture Job Seekers 

As Finances Online highlights, almost three-quarters of job searchers use Google to look for roles. As Google bases its analysis of your careers website on several key factors—including how best it understands what your site is about—it's important to ensure you use keywords to reinforce your website's purpose and unique offering. 

Effective keyword research can help you target the key terms job seekers are searching for when looking for a job. You can then pivot your career site optimization towards content encouraging Google to see you as an industry leader in that area of recruitment.  

For example, keywords can focus on any of the following to attract the audience you are looking for: 

• Job titles 

• Industry-specific terminology 

• Benefits that are popular with specific demographics 

• Remote or hybrid work terms 

• Company values you wish to encourage 

At the same time, if you are looking to recruit from local areas, you can use location-based keywords to tailor your SEO efforts for specific regions. These do not even need to be in the area where your office is, either. For example, if you want to appeal to a further-afield location, you can start creating content to target such groups specifically. 

Leveraging Natural-Sounding Keywords 

However, ensure that you use these keywords on your site naturally. Google will check to see if you have leveraged terms naturally within in your content or if you engage in "keyword stuffing" and penalize your site if you do. Instead, be very specific with keywords and their associated content to ensure search engines see you as the primary source of information for those areas of knowledge. 

To research these keywords, use tools like Google Keyword Planner. These can help you identify not only relevant keywords, but also: 

• Which keywords your competitors are using 

• How many people search for the keyword 

• The likelihood of your page appearing close to the top of search results 

• The typical costs of paid advertising to such a keyword 

Standard SEO campaign techniques involve targeting "long-tail keywords". These are terms with low volume, but which are also easy to leverage due to a low difficulty in appearing high on Google's search engine result page (SERP). In recruitment, these are likely to be things like: 

• Niche careers such as "ethical hacker recruitment" 

• Regional job openings such as "New York perfumer jobs" 

• Industry-specific roles such as "videogame software developer" 

The above list is in no way exhaustive, so remember that you can also target: 

• Demographics 

• Shift times 

• Freelance or contract work 

• Specialized skills 

• Those pivoting careers 

Think about who exactly you are trying to recruit and focus on that group specifically. 

Applying On-Page SEO Best Practices to Career Websites 

Over and above keyword use, there are several practices you can leverage to ensure your careers website appears higher in Google's rankings. For example, you can use meta-tags to highlight key information about a role. Ways you can do this include: 

• Creating concise meta titles for your job pages 

• Writing engaging meta-descriptions to appear under the title on Google 

• Leveraging the header tags (H1/H2/H3) to offer key role information 

• Editing image alt text to include keywords while still describing the picture 

While these tactics may appear to be "in the background," they do help to encourage Google to consider your site as a great source of career information. 

User Experience as a Careers Website SEO Goal 

You will want to ensure that your careers website is easily understandable and visitors can quickly find what they need. A web page's user experience is a core component of ensuring that people visiting your site stay for longer, informing Google that people want to know more about your location. 

To increase the readability of job descriptions: 

• Use bullet points and short paragraphs 

• Avoid jargon outside of mentioning specific technologies 

• Use clear and concise language 

• Leverage headers and images to break up text and maintain flow 

Linking your career pages to other areas of your site also helps people better understand your technical expertise. As users move from your job listing to a case study or a blog post discussing similar topics, they (and Google) will understand more about how you offer distinct knowledge and benefits related to that discussion, boosting your domain authority.  

Develop Off-Page SEO Strategies for Career Sites 

Receiving high-quality backlinks (links from other sites to yours) can increase the likelihood that search engines consider you an industry leader. In terms of your careers website, it can promote you as a popular employer with a reputation as a good source of job information. 

To help with this, try to partner with groups such as: 

• Industry blogs 

• Job boards 

• Educational institutes 

• Diversity and inclusion groups 

Each of these may be able to offer you guest posts or references to your site, boosting your SEO visibility on popular and useful external websites. The more reliable these external sources, the more authority you will have in your industry, and the higher search engines will rank you when people search for careers related to your industry. 

Optimize Technical SEO Elements on Your Careers Website 

92% of young Americans have a smartphone, which many use during their job search, even if they do not apply until they get to a desktop computer. As such, you should always aim to support mobile devices on every page. Use responsive design and test the mobile experience to ensure navigational and functional features work seamlessly. 

Other methods you can utilize to ensure a better technical experience include: 

• Compressing images and minifying code to reduce page load speeds 

• Testing page speeds to identify and resolve bottlenecks 

• Updating your hosting solution when it becomes outdated 

• Securing the site with HTTPS for added trustworthiness 

• Leveraging an XML sitemap and submitting it to Google Search Console 

• Finding and fixing technical issues and crawl errors 

Implementing these will make your site appear more professional and ensure that users have a positive experience while interacting with your careers website. 

Leverage These Tips for Mastering Your SEO Campaigns Effectively 

It's essential to focus your efforts on ensuring you appear whenever potential hires search for you. Otherwise, you may lose out on exceptional talent. Also, strong SEO strategies can ensure your career page receives the notice it deserves.  

Partner with experts like HappyDance to ensure your career site aligns with industry-leading strategies, giving you the necessary visibility to get ahead in the industry. Book a demo with us to learn tips for mastering your SEO campaigns effectively and discover how we can help you improve your online potential today.