When it comes to optimizing your careers site for search engines, there are several small tips and changes you can implement today that can have a big impact. Here are 6 best practice Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tips for career site success. These tips will make your careers site more visible and easily found on search engines, opening your brand up to interested jobseekers looking for roles.
1. Ensure your content is readable at a glance
Just as your candidates want to know at a glance what a landing page or job ad is about, so too does Google. Make your content easy to read for users, and Google will look favorably on it. Adding headers and header tags is one sure-fire way to improve the user-friendliness of your career site content. Having readable and user-friendly content is a key criteria for good SEO.Use short, succinct, and descriptive headers (H1) and sub-headers (H2) to introduce your topic and break up blocks of text. Bear in mind that the ultimate goal of any header is to provide context for the page.
2. Add meta descriptions to your landing pages
A meta description is a HTML attribute that provides a brief summary of your page. You will see this summary appear when your page is returned as part of a search engine’s results.Clinch features functionality that allows you to easily add and update a unique meta description for each of the landing pages on your site, e.g. Careers Homepage, Diversity and Inclusion, Benefits pages and more.
3. Add Alt Descriptions for your images
Google attaches a relatively high level of importance to alt text, which makes sense considering alt text is key to improving accessibility for people who cannot view an image on a page. To make life easier for Clinch users, the platform automatically sets an ‘alt’ description for images used in your careers site content.
Regardless of how or where you manage your alt text, be sure to use descriptive wording that is relevant to the rest of the content on the page as this is ultimately what Google will recognize and reward.
4. Consider launching a career blog
A dedicated careers site blog is a great resource for candidates seeking out information on the employee experience. It is also the perfect home for the Employee Generated Content (EGC) that candidates trust to paint an authentic picture of what it’s really like to work at your company. Content featuring people and culture is getting up to 200% more candidate engagement than it did just 6 weeks ago, while jobs content engagement is down by 62%, research shows. What’s more, as a central, searchable repository for keyword-rich content that is relevant to your brand, a careers site blog is a great way to boost SEO.
5. Categorize blog posts by adding tags
If you decide to set up a careers blog, or simply wish to improve the SEO potential of an existing blog, create and add custom tags (either single or multiple words) to group together or categorize similar blog posts. Not only do tags serve as a key part of the meta data for each blog post page, they also strengthen your career site architecture (more on that below.)
Clinch users can leverage this functionality by editing the post in question, and entering the word or phrase you would like to use as a tag in the new “Tag” field.
6. Aim for intuitive site navigation
Proper career site architecture means that candidates (and, therefore, search engines) can find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. This means longer time spent on the page and a lower bounce rate, both of which boost SEO. Pages that are integral to the candidate experience (Current Openings, for example, or Benefits) should be only one or two clicks away from your home page. You don’t need to re-invent the wheel: a simple web experience is often the most impactful. Whether people are considering changing jobs, online shopping, or booking a holiday, the most effective website experiences are those that are already familiar to the candidate or consumer. Stick with simple navigation that makes sense.
Commit to quality
While there will always be some element of mystery to Google’s constantly-changing search algorithm, well-written content that is relevant to the candidate’s search query will always be rewarded. When it comes to best practice for career sites, build an experience that is user-friendly and, therefore, search-engine friendly. Consider (and research) what your candidates want and need to know at all stages of the recruitment process. Create and publish content that answers these questions. Using the tips we’ve included here, and you’re on the road to ranking on search and achieving careers site success.
