HR Search Engine Optimization

The ultimate goal of any HR Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign is twofold.

1. Increase the number of highly qualified and targeted job seekers to your corporate career website.

2. Increase an employer’s brand, through obtaining high search engine rankings for pages that contain content related to the keyword strings that job seekers are using to search for jobs.

It seems like every day a new company is trying to get into the HR SEO business. Most of these vendors are selling the same product or service, something along the lines of “we will pull your jobs from your ATS, create a micro-site that optimizes those jobs, and then send the candidates to your ATS”.

This approach will result in optimized pages that the search engines will find; however, it’s not meeting the two stated goals of any SEO campaign. This on its own will not lead to more job seekers applying for your open positions. No job seekers will find these pages- it’s not enough just to structure a page so that Google can see it, you have to actively get back links, as well- so no brand authority will be achieved.

Here is why.

You absolutely have to have pages that are optimized for keyword phrases that job seekers are actually using in their job hunt. If no one on Google is using the phrase “electronic assembly jobs in Des Moines, Iowa” (and they aren’t) in the search engines, it doesn’t matter how much time or money you put into optimizing that page- because no one is searching that keyword phrase. No one searching means no one finding your pages means no one applying to your jobs. When was the last time you searched Google and went to Page 2 of the results? Chances are, not very often. In fact, some results show that this happens less than 10% of the time. Top 10 and Top 20 rankings are all that really matter. In fact, when optimizing for any “search string” that has 4 or more words in it, page 2 doesn’t even matter, because there are so few people searching on these phrases, (i.e. “search traffic”), that 10% of 100 searches in a month is only 10 people… That is NOT going to drive candidates to your website.

So is there anything out there that does work?

The first step you have to take is to do research on keywords- in other words, researching a list of potential keyword search strings and using your research to develop a litany of “keyword phrases” your target audience is likely to use to search for jobs. It’s only after you’ve done this research that you can begin working on designing a “landing page” for your jobs, specifically constructed to rank highly on Google and other search engines for the keyword strings your target audience is using. It’s important enough to stress again- the key to SEO is knowing what keyword phrases your jobseekers are using to look for jobs in the search engines. Only after you know that information can you start designing pages around targeted, highly relevant keyword strings. After your page has been optimized, typically, an SEO vendor will help to “submit” and promote the page with Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc.

It’s not a difficult process.

THAT’S NOT ENOUGH THOUGH! Taking the above steps will probably get you into Google’s index- but not on page 1 of the search engine results. If it’s a competitive phrase, you probably won’t be on page 2, 3 or 4, either. The last part of the SEO process is the most critical, hardest, most difficult and expensive process. 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.

In summary, there are 3 critical steps in SEO:

1. Conducting keyword research to figure out how to build your brand and drive traffic.

2. Design and create a web page optimized for those keywords.

3. Implementing a landing page marketing strategy to build credibility and authority to these new web pages.

Any SEO strategy that does not make use of all 3 of these aspects is destined to fail, and that failure will be measured by the distinct lack of new job seekers to your SEO micro site or career site.