Do you think about SEO when writing your job advertisement? We think you should be, and here’s why. 

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is always discussed in light of the promotion of organizations. The ultimate goal for any organization’s marketing strategy is to rank on Google’s page one for their keywords. Imagine how many more applications you’d receive if your job advert hit the top of a job board or careers page ranked on Google’s first page when a potential candidate was searching for a role

Imagine…

You’re hiring for a Marketing Manager for your business based in Vancouver, BC. A candidate is searching for this exact role and location on Indeed. Your advert appears on Indeed’s first page and immediately grabs their attention. They click the link through to your advert and search for your website to read more about the company. They begin and complete an application. They’re a strong candidate.

How pleased are you? 

It’s a candidate-driven market out there; if your company can easily be found by active candidates searching for roles, you’re already one step ahead of the competition.

How does SEO help you to successfully reach the best talent?

Job seekers will be able to see your vacancies by simply searching for a role or a keyword on Google or job boards. If you want to master SEO for this purpose, you’ll need to utilize Google and job boards yourself. The Goliaths of the recruitment world will probably be paying for their ads to be seen first, but if you rank organically, this can look more authentic to your audience.

Job board algorithms are very similar to Google and you should approach the job advert copy for SEO in the same way you would for Google optimization. Google ranks pages that it considers to be valuable based on particular key points. See a few tips below to help you optimize your job advert and to improve organic ranking on both Google and job boards.

3 SEO tips that will help you get the most out of your job advert

1. Keywords, keywords, keywords

Similar to writing a webpage, when writing your job advert for SEO you need to think about the keywords. The main keywords to consider in this case are the job title, location and popular work benefits (such as ‘flexible working’). 

Keep these keywords as accurate and relevant as possible. So, for the example above, your keywords would be: ‘Marketing Manager’ and ‘Vancouver, BC’.

Try researching similar roles too and ensure that you are seeing what the competition is writing to rank their adverts. You’ll be able to tell because in high ranking adverts the keywords are usually located in; the webpage title, the meta-description, the URL slug and usually in the first few lines of text.

Bonus Tip: Once you have identified what keywords you’ll need to include in your copy, use a tool such as Google’s Keyword Planner to help with optimization.

2. Be accurate and clear

This is really important; keywords are going to help you rank, but search engines and job board algorithms are clever and read your content to ensure it is relevant to the keywords. It’s important not to over-kill it on the keyword front; a choice of a couple will be perfect. 

Now it’s time to do your usual thing. Incorporate those keywords and write an accurate job description that has the candidate in mind. The algorithms will like your copy if it is clear, explanatory and precise. If it’s too vague, all the keyword research will go down the drain as the search engines won’t like your copy.

Increase traffic, Reduce Bounce Rate

The algorithms are clever, they rank based on usefulness as well as relevance. Traffic heading to your page with a low bounce rate is a big tick, as it shows your page to be useful and should, therefore, cause it to rank better.

How do you achieve this?

• Ensure your advert is as accessible to those who are viewing it on their smartphones and tablets as it is for desktop. The ability to read your advert on a mobile device is going to reduce the bounce rate and prove it’s worth it.
• Optimize your advert for sharing. By ensuring your link is optimized for your organization (and potential candidates) to share on LinkedIn and other social media platforms, you’ll be able to drive more traffic to the page.
• Consider placing links within your advert. For example; a link to your organization ‘About Us’ page on your website and social media pages. If candidates are able to interact with your webpage, Google and the job boards will see it as useful.

Need some help optimizing your job advert for search engines?

For more information on Scout Talent’s Recruitment Advertising services, click here. Our team are experts in writing the copy for and strategically implementing your job advert. For more information on how our experts can help you reach the best talent available, call us on 1 866 474 3140 or emailing us at hello@scouttalent.ca.

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