To attract the best applicants for a job opening within your organization, ensuring people know the role exists is essential. One effective way to do this is by optimizing your job postings so that they will show up at the top of search engine results when job seekers are looking for employment. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) plays a role.
SEO is a set of best practices that aim to improve a website's visibility and ranking in a search engine's results. When you optimize for SEO, you can increase both the quality and quantity of website traffic by creating content that matches your audience's intent, boosting your site's ranking.
A robust and SEO-optimized job posting is crucial to successfully marketing your open position. The more SEO-friendly your website and job descriptions are, the more traffic you'll receive. To reach your targeted audience, you must use the correct keywords and formatting.
A job description is an internal document that captures a position's responsibilities. It's the official document that follows the guidelines of the company's HR policies.
By contrast, a job posting is an advertisement to market and attract applicants. This nuance is exceptionally important for digital marketing.
All job postings are created with the same goal — to be viewed by job seekers and get qualified candidates to apply.
The more potential candidates see your job postings, the better your chances of attracting top talent. With so many ways to reach candidates, you want your posts to be strong and stand out amongst a sea of job postings. Writing job postings that align with SEO best practices is vital to that.
To write a job posting that ranks high in search results, start by asking yourself these four questions:
A strong, search-engine-optimized job post will rank you higher on search engines and generate more applications for your position. Using the following SEO checklist, you can build an optimized job posting that reaches a larger audience and ranks high on search engines.
Starting with the job title, you'll want to avoid any internal names, marketing words, or abbreviations. Only use relevant titles that your ideal candidate would type into Google. A great way of figuring out the job posting's title is to type it into a search engine, followed by the word "jobs," and look at the results.
Do the top results use the same or a similar job title? Are the jobs that appear seeking to fill the same role as you? If not, consider revisiting the title you plan to use.
Once you've determined a clear job title, include it in your job posting heading, followed by a benefit or two. For example, if you're hiring registered nurses, your heading might read, “RN — Day Shift Only — Sign-On Bonus $8,000" — if you need an RN for the day shift and offer a sign-on bonus. The point is that your heading must capture readers' attention and urge them to learn more.
A key part of SEO is finding out what candidates are typing into popular search engines like Google to discover your job posting. You can leverage tools like Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends, and the search engine to research keywords. Make sure to include the job location as a keyword.
Write a keyword-rich introduction that includes the job title, whether the position is full or part-time, the location, and why a candidate would want to work in this role at your organization.
The more effective you are with your placement and choice of keywords, the more people searching for those terms will have visibility to your job openings.
It's also important to keep your introduction concise and no longer than three sentences. According to an Indeed survey, job seekers commonly spend no more than five minutes reading a job posting before deciding whether to apply. With this in mind, you'll want to relay essential information, like salary details, immediately.
For example, if your keywords include “full-time RNs in Atlanta,” “flexible scheduling,” and “benefits package,” your introduction may look something like this: “Join our compassionate, patient-centered team as a full-time RN at our Atlanta office. We offer flexible scheduling, a comprehensive benefits package, and competitive wages. RNs start at $35 to $45 per hour based on years of experience.”
When writing a job posting, rely on this motto — write for humans, optimize for Google. This means putting yourself in the reader's shoes and delivering job-specific information that answers their questions and piques their interest. Google awards content that prioritizes user intent, so you always want to keep the reader in mind with SEO.
Writing for humans also means using your keywords conversationally. For instance, instead of inserting the keyword “retail jobs near me" verbatim in your heading, write “a rewarding retail job near Houston” or wherever your business is located. Including a keyword variation is OK if it allows you to write naturally — this will only improve your posting's SEO.
Consider reading your posting out loud to see if it mimics how someone speaks, and revise your writing if it feels too robotic. The goal is to connect with the reader and ensure they don't feel intimidated. Overall, a job posting should read as if it was written by a person, not a machine.
Use a bulleted format to list the primary duties, responsibilities, qualifications, and skills using related terms and keywords after introducing the role. This section should clearly define the scope of the role. Make sure to include the exact names of any software, tools, or technology that an employee will use. This will help with optimization.
The keywords you use in the job description essentially create an SEO "word web" around your job title. However, it's important to avoid stuffing your posting with keywords. This can adversely affect your job posting's rankings. Aim for a 2% to 3% ratio of keywords.
Consider adding an image or video to your job posting to attract and engage candidates. You can use visual media to showcase your culture, values, and mission, or help the reader understand the position and what it entails.
The more helpful content is, the better it will rank. That said, make sure the media in your post loads quickly, since a slow-loading page can negatively impact SEO. If videos or images impact your page speed, there are simple fixes you can try.
You can reduce your video's resolution and frame rate to help it load quicker. Also, ensure your video doesn't continually loop in the background of your page. If the video doesn't require audio, consider removing it to boost loading speed.
For images, use an image resizing application like Adobe's free image resizer or Google Play's photo and picture resizer to decrease its size and optimize loading times.
Some job descriptions will be longer than others, depending on the role. However, a good rule is to aim for a length of around 300 to 800 words. Ideally, your posting will be short, straightforward, and well-organized so readers can quickly scan critical details and determine if they want to apply.
To illustrate how to allocate your word count, here's what a 350-word job posting might look like:
Bulleted lists and concise paragraphs will help maximize your word count and keep readers engaged.
Now that you've optimized your job posting for search engines, it's time to get the word out. You'll want to share your SEO-optimized posting on high-traffic job boards, social media, and your company website to reach a wider audience.
Search engines love fresh content. To ensure you provide candidates and search engines with the most up-to-date information about an open role, you should update it every 30 days.
How do you know if your job posting performs well in search engine results? Tracking and monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) can provide insight into your posting's SEO performance. It involves benchmarking metrics against a target, helping you to pinpoint areas to improve. Job posting KPIs include:
Contact the Hueman RPO team today to collaborate with our recruiters and craft high-ranking job postings. We also encourage you to download our e-book, the World-Class Recruitment Guide, for everything you need to know about job posting best practices and how to attract quality candidates.