Creating your HR SEO Goals

There are three primary goals of any HR Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign:

  1. Increase Career Site Visitors
  2. Increase Job Applications
  3. Increase your Recruiting Brand

A well thought out SEO strategy and implementation will accomplish all of these goals.

Any successful search engine optimization company will tell you there are specific steps that need to occur in order to accomplish your SEO goals.


The 3 major SEO steps are:


Keyword Research:

What phrases are your target candidates typing in Google to find career and job information? You'll need to know the how many times those "exact phrases" are used in the search engines and how many other competitors are competiting for those same phrases.


The results of this research will create the road map for the rest of your campaign. Keyword research will tell you specifically what keywords your job seekers are using and how much work is needed to get your web page ranked in the Top 10 for those specific phrases. Again, the key to SEO is knowing what your job seekers are typing into Google.


WARNING!! There are NO short-cuts here. If you skip this step, the rest of campaign is likely to fail!! Either you won't get the number of job seekers you need, or you will not get the right candidates. If you find an HR SEO vendor providing SEO without first providing keyword research, run! If you don't know your target market, what could you possibly be optimizing for?


Create Keyword optimized Landing Pages:

For each keyword phrase you want to optimize for, you need a single web page that is optimized specifically for that phrase and that specific type of candidate. Your recruiting message and vision will be slightly different for each type of candidate you are trying to hire. For instance, your recruiting message for experienced professionals will be slightly different than your message for part-time seasonal employees. The different landing pages need to accomplish this, while creating continuity with your overall recruiting brand. When building these web pages there are several SEO fundamentals that the web design and copywriters will use.


The landing pages should have 3 specific goals in mind;

  1. Optimized for a Top 10 ranking for that specific phrase
  2. Building your company brand
  3. Convert visitors to build a relationship with your company (ie, applying to jobs, signing up for job agents, signing up for newsletters)

Promoting and Marketing the landing pages:

This is one of the most critical steps. When was the last time you visited page 2 or page 3 of a search engine result? If you are like most people, you vist page 2 probably less than 10% of the time. Therefore, once the landing pages are designed, you need a marketing plan to build authority to these pages, so they are highly ranked in the search engines. There are many was to do this, all of which take time, resources, and an HRSEO partner who has a proven track record of success. Building authority to these landing pages requires back links from lots of quality sites.


How does it all fit together?   Let's look at an example:

Let's say you are trying to hire Nurses in Baltimore, Maryland.

  • * There is a shortage of nurses in Baltimore, and there are some tough local recruiting competitors, such as John Hopkins Hospital, a highly respected local hospital, that always seems get the best nurses.
  • * Your hospital is well respected. Your employees love where they work. Your turn-over is lower than average.
  • * You post jobs on all the normal suspects (the big boards, the major niche boards, etc.)...

But you just can't seem to fill the requisitions.


You need something else. This is where SEO comes in.


Each month there are over 100 Million job related searches initiated on Google. Some of those searches are from the qualified candidates you are trying to reach.


If a prospective candidate types in "Maryland Nursing Jobs", is your company listed in the Top 10?
How about the Top 20?


What about your competitors? Johns Hopkins Hospital is listed...
What about other keyword phrases like "pediatric nurse jobs in Baltimore, Maryland"?


Well, here is the challenge... you can get highly ranked for a "long tail" phrase like "pediatric nurse jobs in Baltimore, Maryland", but does this keyword bring in job seekers? The answer is not really! Why? Because if you had performed your keyword research (Step 1), you might have found that the phrase "pediatric nurse jobs in Baltimore, Maryland" is not a phrase being entered into the search engines. This phrase is really nothing more than a job title with a city and state name tacked onto it.


So, Great! You're on top of the search engine rankings, but did you achieve your SEO campaign goals?
Did you increase your recruiting brand? Well, no one saw the landing page, so. NO!
Did you increase the traffic to your career site? Again, NO!
How likely were you able to get qualified candidates to apply for your jobs? Well, no traffic, means no applicants.


This strategy didn't work.


In summary, it goes back to the process, keyword research, optimizing pages, marketing those pages. If you skip the keyword research and just start publishing "job titles" for a bunch of random job titles in random locations, with no research and without identifying the major keyword phrases in your market, then you only have a random chance of creating a successful SEO campaign.


If you are trying to optimize for job titles, instead of doing keyword research, then it doesn’t matter if you spent $100,000 or just $1,000 on your SEO campaign, it probably won't work.


Without the proper marketing of your career site and landing pages, your pages are the same as everyone else’s.  In order to be an “authority” (and therefore, in the top of the search engines) you need to have other, quality websites link to your pages.


Creating and implementing a HR SEO campaign takes a partner who has proven succes, with both keyword research and building and maintaining an ongoing authority back linking campaign.


If you are interested in working with a partner who know HRSEO, knows keyword research, and has proven success with implementing hundreds of Top 10 Top Rankings, sign-up for a webinar, or contact SEO4Jobs, directly. Good luck with your HR SEO campaign.