Making sure Google can find your careers website and vacancies

Making sure Google can find your careers website and vacancies

You’ve worked hard to build your careers website. It looks good, it’s got all your latest roles on there too, even a nice video. But, if your site could speak, it might sound a little bit like Lionel Richie.

“Hello, is it me you’re looking for?”

And just like Lionel, it’ll be left wondering where your candidates are, and wondering what they do. That’s because, unless your site and vacancies are set-up right – some other employer will soon be loving them.

So, how can you make sure it’s your site and vacancies they are not only looking for, but actually find? The good news is, as this article will show, a lot of this is easy to do. So let’s start with making sure Google finds your careers website.

Does Google know your careers website is a careers website?

Sometimes it’s the most obvious things that are easy to overlook. The biggest challenge your careers page may face is that Google doesn’t know it’s a careers page. Which won’t do it any favours when it comes to being found. At the very least, the URL of your careers site or pages, should be structured so it starts of ends with something careers, jobs or vacancies. This will help Google know that this is a jobs section and should therefore be indexed as such in search results.

You need to get your careers page and live vacancies set-up so that they are found for the roles they list. Google is very helpful when it comes to this. It publishes directions so that you can set-up job postings to be better found in Google searches, leading to the posts having increased chances of discovery and conversion.

How to do this

These three links will give your site and its vacancies a big splash of SEO juice and ensure they are indexed by Google and Indeed which costs nothing. If you aren’t IT savvy or don’t have access to your site back end, you might want to get your IT department to help. It should be easy for them to follow.

Are you set-up for Google for Jobs?

Google for Jobs has been live in the UK for a few months now. It has been designed to simplify and speed up the process of job hunting for job seekers. If you are set-up for Google for Jobs, then your roles will appear in Google’s job search box by matching what your candidates have been searching for. Which sounds like a pretty good idea to us.

Some employers are reporting a 60% increase in job views as a result of being set-up for Google for Jobs. So you’ll want to get a copy of ‘Our little guide to Google for Jobs’ ebook.

Are your job postings written to be found?

Of course they are – or so you might think. But Google likes things laid out in a logical way. A cut and paste of the job description won’t be enough. If you want to be friends with Google (and job boards in general) – you have to play by their rules. What’s more, the way you write and structure your job postings will also have a huge impact on how they are found and interpreted by your candidates. And not just any candidates – but the better qualified ones you really want.

This article has all the elements to help you create a well crafted, highly targeted and, most importantly of all, interesting and readable job advert. https://www.thatlittleagency.co.uk/little-guide-writing-successful-job-advert/

A little more about SEO

Google looks for the same things in a career site that it does in any good website – and that means good SEO practice. With a careers site, indexing and doing all the set-up things we covered above is an absolute must. But what else can you do?

Make it mobile friendly: Google gives preference in searches to sites that are mobile compatible. It’s also a lot easier for your candidates to engage with and find what they want. If your careers site isn’t mobile friendly, you’ll be losing candidates full stop. If you have an existing site that isn’t mobile friendly, a new careers site is the time to change things. Here’s something we wrote on mobile applications – it’ll give you some pointers.

Check it loads fast: Your candidates don’t like to wait – and nor does Google. You only have a matter of seconds to encourage your candidates to stick with you and read more. If your site loads any slower than 3 seconds you may already have lost up to 40% of potential visitors. You can run your careers site through Google’s mobile site speed checker. Anything more than 2.5 seconds is considered slow. You’ll get a report with recommended fixes.

Add fresh content: Every day Google crawls the web looking for signs of new content. It tells Google that your site is alive and well. So, adding well structured content with relevant keywords to your careers site will help get it noticed and give your candidates fresh reasons to interact with your employer brand. So, as well as your vacancies, think about blog articles, testimonials from staff, videos – there’s a lot you can do with content.

Get social: Using social media can add tremendous reach for your careers site. That’s because it’s highly likely that the network of your employees and their friends and contacts  is much bigger than yours as an employer. Yes, there’s an audience for your careers site – but there’s a much bigger one if you use social media and link it back to your site. What’s more, social media is where employees and candidates will be talking, so you might as well join in the conversation. This post covers how social media will support your employer brand.

In conclusion

You don’t need to be an SEO expert to bring good SEO to your careers site. This article has covered most of the basics you’ll need to help your site and vacancies have a much better chance of being found.

In summary, if your careers site has well indexed and written pages, well structured job postings (and clear job titles), is set up for Google for Jobs, is mobile friendly, loads quickly, has fresh content and uses the right keywords (pause for breath)… then you are doing many of the right things.

Is it us you’re looking for?

We are That Little Agency, we help employers tell their story and we do this by developing award-winning employer brands and careers websites. If you feel that you’d like some help, support or even a little chat around defining your employer value proposition, developing your employer brand or any aspect of your talent attraction strategy just drop us a line. After all, much of our best work has started with a cup of tea and a biscuit.