Google Tweaks Search… and your Job Postings?

Last night, Google announced a major improvement in the way they rank search results. Search results have been typically easy to manipulate and the result is that commercial sites focused on technical optimization do better than sites with high-quality, original content and research. These new tweaks by Google to its algorithms will apparently focus results on original, high-quality content. This new development has ramifications for the recruiting industry for both job boards and for employment websites.

If you manage jobs postings for your recruiting firm or corporate employment websites, you should pay attention to these new developments (although the new Google tweaks are in-line with the best practices that they have always espoused.) It makes optimizing your job posts all the more important, but it also most likely creates new urgency for original, well-crafted content. The new development may also penalize job board networks that duplicate job listings across tons of websites and don’t offer a real resource for jobseekers.

Whether you run a job board or your company’s jobsite, the same principles apply as always. Keep the user (in this case the candidate) in mind. Provide quality articles and resources for candidates specific to the nature of the employment. The great thing about this development is that if do have a legitimate jobsite, your jobs will likely rank higher and not get shoved aside by some pro SEO. A few things you might want to do to take full advantage of search optimization for your job postings:

• Start a company blog that talks about local developments and your specific industry. Don’t just reference your job postings, but rather write about them… what makes a particular job unique? What can someone working in that position expect for their career progression?
• Review how you distribute jobs. Keep an eye on how you are distributing your jobs and make sure to emphasize high quality sites and job board services.
• Improve your job posts. We recently published an article about optimizing your job posts, but think first about quality. Make sure that you are using proper grammar, advanced language, and interesting descriptions. Good job postings should contribute to your overall employment brand, so this advice is not new. However, as Google and other search engines emphasize quality over quantity, you want to make sure that your job posts are engaging and descriptive.
• Become a hub. You want your employment website or job board to be the hub of a particular community. Think of being at the middle of a spider web or being perceived as an axle and not a spoke… Write articles and content that engages with a particular industry, location, or profession and also spotlight what other sites and individuals are saying on the web. Probably now more than ever, Google is going to reward websites for being “hubs” of information and connectivity. If you can become a real resource in your local community or for a certain type of jobseeker, your site will be ranked highly and receive more applicants.

For the majority of people, the new Google tweaks to search won’t effect the rankings of their job posts very much. However, the change does serve as a reminder to build high quality resources for jobseekers and candidates. The great news is that if you keep the candidate in mind in every aspect of your jobsite (content, application process, employment branding), you will be rewarded with not only happy users, but increasingly with better search ranking.