As a job board operator, it is important that you constantly focus on your SEO performance. We have compiled some helpful tips for you that will help you drive up the SEO performance of your job board.
1) Job Quality
The job quality is especially important for backfill and imported jobs.
- Focus on high-quality jobs for your job board (e.g. niche jobs).
- Unique and relevant job content is more valuable for your SEO performance.
- When receiving a new feed, always ask the feed provider to include all the relevant fields and if job per link needs to be setup, check to make sure there are no bad html tags or parsing errors. Test the external url in https://search.google.com/test/rich-results to make sure the content does not have any errors before setting up an importer. Google will penalize the site for any possible errors.
- If you would like to import low-quality backfill jobs (e.g. jobs that are posted on several platforms, jobs with short job descriptions or no hiring organization name) these jobs should be excluded from Google indexing. Make sure to inform us in case you require this set-up for a new importer.
- The minimum required fields on a job should always be available (job title, hiring organization, job description, location, employment type, occupation, datePosted).
Taxonomies:
- Besides the minimum required fields, tag the job with suitable taxonomy terms (e.g. fields of study, skills) to help users perform a job search.
- Ensure that the taxonomy for salary range and employment type is mapped to the schema for Google 4 Jobs. You can perform these changes in the backend via the taxonomy manager
Low-quality job example
2) Job title & description
- The job title should contain the job occupation.
- The job description should provide insights into the job and should therefore have an optimal length (too short or too long descriptions could have a negative impact).
- Choose keywords wisely: Focus on the most relevant keywords in the job title and description text.
Job example (title without occupation and comprehensive job description)
3) SEO Search Content
- It is always recommended to provide unique, instead of generic or duplicate, SEO Search Content.
- Enrich your SEO search content with quality content in the footer text: Use this field to add call-to-actions and job-related text about the actual SEO Search (e.g. insights into job market specifics for the actual SEO Search)
If you want to learn more about SEO Search Content, please read this article: What is SEO Search Content and how can I use this feature?
SEO search content example for your footer text
4) Metadata
Landing Pages
- Meta tags help search engines understand what is the most important information on your landing page.
- Perform good research in order to use the correct page description and page title for your landing pages. It is recommended to analyse the user behaviour in Google Analytics to understand what your audience is looking for.
a) Page titles
- Use relevant and concise page titles: Titles should accurately describe the content of the page and should not be longer than 60 characters.
- Please do not use words like Welcome in the title or generic words. Use keywords in the title that describe your job board or the respective landing page.
- Write for humans first before prioritizing search engines to optimize organic traffic.
🔥Extra tips:
It is recommended to include your brand name as the last element.
Examples:
Find the right products for your jobs | [site:name]
Learn about XY [site:name]
Learn how to expose your brand to the world [site:name]
b) Meta Description
Write effective meta descriptions: Descriptions should be concise, engaging and accurately reflect the content on the page. Add call-to-actions to your page descriptions.
- Keep them under 160 characters.
- Highlight the market and/or target group you are operating.
- Incorporate a call to action and focus on your main goal.
- The meta description should relate to the content presented on the page.
- Monitor your metadata regularly: Keep an eye on how your metadata is performing and make changes as needed to improve click-through rates.
🔥Extra tip:
We recommend using the maximum number of characters. If the descriptions are too short, Google may classify them as less relevant or create its own description.
Example:
Showcase your open vacancies with the right products.
Learn more about metadata in this article: How can I change the metadata of landing pages?
5) Social Media
- Sharing on social media like LinkedIn and Facebook can generate valuable backlinks and in turn, helps boost your ranking on search engines.
- Share only high-quality landing pages, blog posts and jobs (not backfill jobs) regularly on social media. Use relevant captions for the posts.
- Keep your social media profiles relevant and well-optimized.
6) Local SEO Optimization
- Use https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=jobs&geo=AT to find out the most searched-for related queries and adapt your page and/or meta titles and descriptions.
- Add relevant locations in your titles and description.
- If you have a local business website, the content and being listed in Google helps improve rankings.
- Check Google suggest to find out the top queries being suggested in your area.
7) Google Search Console
- Regularly check your site's Google Search Console dashboard, especially for
- queries, pages and search appearance - https://search.google.com/search-console/performance/search-analytics to find out the top searches in google that are bringing in organic traffic to your site and make sure the meta data is representing these queries.
- Job postings - https://search.google.com/search-console/r/jobs to check if any of the job postings have invalid URLs and fix them immediately. If the jobs cannot be fixed, please make sure to remove the URL from indexing or Google will penalize the whole site for even a few invalid job postings.
- Security & Manual Actions: Periodically check the two items to make sure there are no errors.
8) Advertising
Advertising for example on Google Ads works together with Search Engine Optimization. Advertising helps to increase visibility quicker and bring in more traffic to your site. SEO and Ads work in different ways but together they create a successful online presence.