How to Use Google to Make More Direct Hires
1. Make sure the url of the front page of your careers site is correct
Basically, ensure the word jobs is in it, for example: www.bigfirm.com/jobs. Not careers or current vacancies… just the word ‘jobs’. The reason for this is because job seekers searching on search engines type in a job title, location, some key skills and the word jobs:
Finance Manager jobs London management accounts
If the word jobs is in the URL of the page, you’re more likely to be indexed by a search engine.
2. Separate pages for every job
Make sure the job you’re advertising has a separate page dedicated to the full details of the role. If you list all the jobs on 1 page, that’s fine but don’t then allow the text to also appear on that page. The job details must open up as a separate page and (here’s the crucial bit) ensure the job title and location are in the url: www.bigfirm.com/jobs/marketing_manager_miami
or something like that. If a job seeker does a search for Marketing Manager jobs Miami, a search engine will rank a page much more prominently if the search terms are all in the url.
3. Don’t be shy with the keywords
So if the job is a Marketing Manager role and you’re looking for someone with skills in online work, banner advertising, SEO and maybe basic HTML, make sure you mention both the job title and the keywords several times each in the job details on your careers site.
The easiest way of doing it is to have a keyword box at the bottom of the job details:
Keywords: Marketing Manager HTML online SEO banner adverting
4. Mention all possible job titles and keywords
If you’re job is a Business Development Manager, it will never appear if a job seeker is searching for a Sales Manager job. Similarly if you’re hiring a Digital Marketing Manager, it may not be very high up the ranking on Google if a job seeker has searched for Online Marketing Manager jobs.
So make sure cover this problem but mentioning all possible alternative keywords or job titles in the advert text to maximize your chances of the job being indexed high up.
5. If you’re regularly hiring for a certain job….
Make sure you have profile pages of similar people who work for you listed on your careers site under a separate section ‘What our staff think”. Then get them to write a brief profile on themselves and describe what they do, ideally packing their profile with the job title/keywords that relate to the role you’re trying to hire (and don’t forget the url as well – point 2).
Also, here’s a great tip: on their job title, hyperlink it back to the jobs page of your website (see point 6 below as to why !). If this appears on someone else’s site it will become a back link (more on back-links in point 6).
The more your careers site contains details relating to the role you’re trying to fill (and not just the actual page containing the job details), the more likely your careers site will be indexed high up by Google and others.
6. Create a blog
Get new starters to write articles on your blog about what it’s like to work there, or any topic that relates to your business, then make sure their profile is listed at the bottom of it crammed full of relevant keywords and their job title.
James Smith is a Java Developer at xxxxx. He designs our software in Java and has vast experience in building platforms based on SQL, HTMl etc etc.
Obviously you don’t have to reveal the person’s name if you don’t want to, but every week ask a new member of staff to contribute a brief article.
A blog has several benefits. Articles can be circulated around the internet. The more back links you have to your site from external sites, the more likely a search engine will index your careers pages and if you create a back link relating to a specific search term a job seeker might use… say Java Developer … Google and others rate that highly, thus indexing you even higher. So for example, if you’re regularly looking for Java Developers and one of your existing Java Developers writes an article, as per point 5, their profile at the bottom should have their job title, Java Developer, linked back to the front page of your careers section. The more these articles get published around the Internet, the more back links you’ll get.
Also a blog is a great way of telling job seekers about the business and about the staff which will attract more people to apply.
7. Be smart how you advertise the role on job boards
Again, it’s all about back links. If you advertise the role on a job board try and get the job title into the text linking back to the specific job page on your careers site.
Posting it on a group on LinkedIn or anywhere else… make sure there’s a back link underneath the job title.
Google loves back links from content relevant sites i.e. the sites are connected to the search term put in. So if you advertise the role on Monster, create the job text in a word document making sure that nice little back link is in there, then just copy and paste it into the text editor and on quite a few job boards they’ll allow the link to appear. Links back to your site from relevant recruitment sites, not just job boards, but blog sites, industry bodies, industry sites… all this is great for making Google love your careers pages.
8. Make it easy for people to socialise your job
Get your IT guys to add “Add this ” to your job posts and pages and make it easy for people to forward your vacancy to their friends via their social networks. Remember, the more external sites it appears on (provided you’ve got a nice back link or 2 in there), the higher up the search engines it will appear and that’s not even counting the positive effect of having more eyes see your job on their friends’ Facebook and Twitter pages.