Job postings on your Careers page and online boards are a highly effective way to reach potential candidates while providing valuable insights on your positions, organizational culture and employment brand.

These listings build links and drive targeted job seeker traffic to your openings. Search engine optimization enables you to extend the life of your postings, enhance your company’s page ranking and reach very specific online audiences. Used strategically, SEO can lower your cost per hire and help you reach top talent ahead of your competition.

What steps can you take to set your postings apart from the others?

 
Use Keywords

More than 124 million job searches a month are done on Google.com alone. To ensure that your posting is returned in the top of search engine results, be sure to use the right keywords. The Google AdWords tool is a good place to start your research.

  • Ask yourself: What phrases are relevant and specific to my job description? What terms might the talent we’re looking for search out?
  • Brainstorm as many phrases as possible. Look at competitor listings for ideas.
  • Keyword phrases should be specific. Avoid marketing fluff and focus on words that clearly explain your business, your industry, the position and its location.

 
Customize URLs

Customize your web address to include your job title, the city where the job is located and other keywords.

 
Incorporate Video

Search engines – and web visitors – love video. Videos keep job seekers on pages longer, learning more about your position and your company.

  • In addition to embedding your videos on your own web site, upload them directly to YouTube. While this won’t guarantee first-page results, you can be sure Google will index them. Almost all the video that Google shows on its blended searches are from YouTube.
  • Video titles are important. They’re what Google is most interested in when it comes to a term being used for a search. So search terms need to match your video title.
  • Embed videos with text. This helps search engines get a better understanding of what your content is all about. Write an intro to your video or insert a transcript underneath it. You can get a transcript using a service such as Speech Pod.

 
Capitalize on Landing Pages

Because postings come and go, they are frequently removed from the web, making SEO an ongoing challenge. If you’re regularly hiring for certain positions, consider creating optimized landing pages; for instance, a page optimized for “Montgomery Financial Analysts Jobs” linking your latest openings on the page itself.

And by using landing pages to help drive candidates for specific positions, you can attract job seekers to your Careers pate on an ongoing basis. Landing pages can be optimized through the use of keywords that make them easily found by web crawlers and job seekers alike.

 
For more tips on using SEO and other recruitment strategies to your competitive advantage, contact the expert team at Magellan Search & Staffing today.