Source: 9GAG
Want to know the secret to sustainable talent acquisition?
It’s all about factoring SEO into your recruitment marketing. Leading recruitment agencies have clued up to this and are making SEO an integral part of their recruitment strategies.
If you’re not familiar with SEO, have a quick read of our essential guide to SEO for beginners to set you up nicely ready to tackle recruitment SEO.
In this article, the SEO specialists at Galactic Fed explain exactly what recruitment SEO is and how it can help you engage job seekers and boost talent acquisition to persuade the best and the brightest to join your organization.
What is recruitment marketing?
Recruitment marketing involves utilizing tactics predominantly used within inbound marketing and applying them to run-of-the-mill recruiting practices undertaken by HR departments.
People and recruitment specialists have embraced the digital world, using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for networking and talent acquisition, while monitoring a company’s online reputation as an employer.
Recruitment marketing can focus on long-term talent acquisition goals and attract passive job seekers. Showcase your unique brand, culture, and employee value proposition through an active social media presence and through relevant and engaging content like blogs and videos.
What is recruitment SEO?
Recruitment SEO is the practice of enhancing the content on your website so that it ranks higher in search engine results like Google, driving job seekers to your site organically.
Why should recruiters care about SEO?
You should care about SEO because it’s your best bet for reaching job seekers online. Your job vacancies, blogs, videos, and employee testimonials will become more visible and accessible to the most relevant job seekers if done well.
So, where is today’s talent economy going to look for jobs?
77% say they are going directly to a company’s websites, and 55% use a search engine like Google.
Six SEO recruitment tips that engage job seekers
Here are Galactic Fed’s top six tips for companies undertaking recruitment SEO to engage job seekers and facilitate sustainable talent acquisition.
Supercharge your metadata
Make it as easy as possible for Google to spot and index your content on relevant search engine results pages with accurate and descriptive metadata.
In other words, a tailored meta description helps Google understand what each of your webpages is about.
To create the perfect meta description, try to stick to the following guidelines:
- use no more than 155 characters,
- keep it clear and concise, with a call to action for job seekers.
To really nail your meta description, check out our handy guide on the topic.
Keep your content fresh
Nobody likes out-of-date job postings or articles that are no longer relevant, especially Google. Galactic Fed recommends performing a content audit and ensuring you’ve archived job postings that have been filled and blogs that no longer serve your business goals.
Keeping content fresh isn’t just about job postings, either. By regularly posting articles, event updates, video clips, and other content, you can indicate to Google that your site consistently produces fresh content. You’ll be rewarded with a decent spot on your targeted search engine results page.
Double down on keyword research
Although it can be time-consuming, researching and choosing the right keywords can help you obtain greater visibilty from qualified job seekers and and increase organic search traffic to your site.
Begin by understanding which short and long-tail keywords job seekers use to search for jobs relevant to your company. You can also research what keywords your competitors are using in their job postings and more comprehensive content to inform and expand your keyword list.
Pay close attention to keyword intent as part of your SEO recruitment strategy to ensure they remain aligned to your broader business goals.
If you are a brick and mortar business and attracting local job seekers is vital to you, take advantage of locally-focused keywords in the content you publish and share online better to reach quality candidates in close proximity to you.
Get social
Social media is a powerful tool to share employment opportunities, drive traffic to your website organically, and build brand awareness. Make it simple for your existing employees to share their success stories of working for you through social media to expand your online reach and entice quality job seekers to your site.
Nurturing a social presence can help potential candidates get a feel for your organization, allow them to contact you in a way that suits them, and helps boost your SEO recruitment in the process, indirectly.
Ensure your site is mobile-friendly
With over 90% of job seekers using their mobile devices to look for their dream jobs, it’s vital your website is mobile-friendly.
Make sure every page on your website is optimized for mobile search, to begin with.
Bottom line – if your site isn’t easy to navigate on a mobile phone, you could hurt your search engine ranking. Using responsive web design as a part of your SEO recruitment strategy is the best way to avoid this.
Your site’s content will be easy to read by ensuring responsive design, with no pinching or zooming required. Job seekers should also be able to submit their resumes directly from their mobile devices to your company’s website.
Build strong links
Our last tip is all about strengthening your website’s domain authority to rank higher on organic search results. A powerful way to do this is by link building.
Start by publishing quality content that reputable sites will naturally want to link to. You can also reach out to sites with quality authority scores and ask them to link your content.
The Galactic Fed introduction to link building might be of use to you if you’re entirely new to building quality links to and from your website for recruitment purposes.
SEO recruitment made simple
From crafting the perfect meta description to building the best keyword list possible, attract the best talent for your company with search engine optimization.
By keeping your site’s content fresh and nurturing a social media presence, you can drive quality candidates to your job postings organically.
With a large majority of job seekers looking for their next job on their phones, ensure your site is mobile-friendly. And lastly, boost your site’s domain authority with a focus on SEO recruitment link building.
If you want a helping hand with any of these tactics, contact Galactic Fed! We have direct experience helping companies supercharge their recruitment SEO to reach quality job seekers online.
