6 Proven SEO Strategies for Recruitment That Will Get You the Best Candidates

Publié le 21 February 2022 Par Nick Brown

Find the right people to join your organization and help it grow quickly and effectively by implementing the 6 proven SEO strategies for recruitment that will get you the best candidates.

The most talented candidates find job vacancies in many different ways. Whether they use social media, employment platforms, or search engines to locate their next opportunity, SEO strategies are vital for making sure vacancies are seen.

By using SEO techniques, recruiters ensure their vacancies are more easily found and attract the right caliber of applicants. This reduces the traditional costs of recruiting while cutting down on the time it takes to find the perfect people.

If you’re not sure of the 6 proven SEO strategies for recruitment that will get you the best candidates, here’s what you need to know.

6 Proven SEO Strategies for Recruitment That Will Get You the Best Candidates

Use keywords

Use video in recruitment

Get meta

Ensure mobile compatibility

Have a Careers page

Make the most of social media

1. Use Keywords

The first step is to ensure your adverts are making use of the right keywords. Keywords are a cornerstone of SEO strategies, and it’s from them that entire digital marketing campaigns are born. They can be used to ensure that when someone is searching for a specific role, your advert is visible.

For recruitment, the keywords you use will be those targeted specifically at the role you’re trying to fill. Of course, more popular target keywords will mean more competition, so it’s not just a matter of researching and discovering basic recruitment terms.

You also have to ensure you use them in the right way. You can enlist a professional SEO service to help with this. However, the key thing to remember is you shouldn’t overstuff keywords into your job adverts. Use them naturally so the written text doesn’t confuse real people. SEO strategies are often targeted at pleasing search engines, but good SEO remembers the human element too.

If you’re already using keywords as part of your digital sales funnel, it’s a simple matter of fine-tuning your recruitment funnel to match the effectiveness of your wider SEO strategies.

2. Use Video in Recruitment

Digital marketing professionals love video. It’s the single most popular form of content, and it can be used for everything from how-to videos to social media ads and brand storytelling. What’s too commonly overlooked are the advantages of using video interviews in the hiring process.

Video is excellent for recruitment because it gives more information to candidates without overwhelming them with giant walls of text. This makes them much more likely to absorb details and engage with what you’re putting out there.

Already, recruiters are making greater use of video calls to conduct interviews, especially since they can now implement recording calls so more members of the team can get involved in candidate analysis.

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Videos reduce bounce rates, but make sure you follow best practices for integrating them into your strategy. For recruiters, that means:

Using captions and subtitles. This ensures video adverts for a vacancy are accessible to more people, widening the recruiting pool while ensuring the top candidates aren’t overlooked.

Thumbnails. The right thumbnail will encourage a candidate to click on your video to find out more about your vacancy. A poor thumbnail will have the opposite effect.

Host your video. Don’t rely on YouTube to host. Instead, publish your job vacancy video ads directly onto your website. If your SEO strategies are working, they’ll bring applicants to your web pages rather than to YouTube, meaning you can provide more value through other content and keep them on your business website for longer.

HR teams need to use technology to improve the employee experience, from recruitment to onboarding to daily management. Video technology is more accessible than ever and should be a core component of any recruitment strategy.

One thing to remember when using video is to A/B test to work out which video formats are most effective. Just as product testing is vital for software developers, A/B testing is essential for digital marketers. What is product testing? It’s simply a way to streamline workflow and productivity. A/B testing your recruitment ads will highlight which are having the greatest impact.

3. Get Meta

This isn’t about the Facebook rebrand. Meta titles are another core component of SEO strategies, so recruiters need to learn more about what they are and how to use them effectively.

Meta titles and meta descriptions are as basic as it gets when it comes to SEO, but recruiters often overlook their value and miss out on candidates as a result. All content, from job adverts to your About Us page and beyond, should use the following:

A meta title. You’ll need to limit your titles to between 65 and 78 characters (depending on the devices being used to see your job ads), but ensure they contain the job title, location, and company name. The job title should include one of your recruitment keywords.

Meta description. You have more characters to play with here, but don’t go over 165. Make sure your meta description contains the job title (with keywords), plus the company name and location of the position. Then you have space to add a CTA, so consider writing ‘apply here’ or ‘actively recruiting now’.

4. Ensure Mobile Compatibility

Job seekers are as likely to use their phones to find the perfect role as they are their PCs and laptops, so recruiters need to make sure vacancy ads are fully SEO optimized for smartphone viewability. This not only makes it easier for candidates to find out the information they need but improves the beginning of the candidate experience.

Website building platforms offer mobile optimization options, so ensure these are activated at all times. You can also ensure that these options are are integrated into your hosting services and if your business doesn’t use a website builder, the good news is there are plenty of digital marketing tools available, many of which will help to optimize your website for device compatibility.

Pages on mobile should be readable without the candidate having to pinch and zoom to view sections. A too-small font size or images that aren’t optimized will make for a less satisfying candidate experience and negatively affect your employer brand in the eyes of candidates, and some of the best candidates will head elsewhere.

One common mistake with vacancy pages and mobile compatibility is having your navigation buttons too small. Make sure that, even on a small screen, candidates won’t get frustrated with navigation issues.

It’s one thing for brands to learn how to attract new customers, but too many overlook the key gains they can earn by learning to attract the most qualified candidates.

5. Have a Careers Page

With job seekers now having the full scope of the internet at their fingertips, businesses need to have a careers page if they want to stand out. While job sites remain popular, having candidates head to your brand’s website is extremely valuable. However, your careers page should do a lot more than simply list your current vacancies.

Categorize existing vacancies with links to find out more about them. Your careers page can also be used to tell potential candidates about the business and its company culture, with internal links that provide them with additional information.

These internal links are great for SEO, especially if they’re clicked on. Don’t forget to include testimonials from former and current members of the team, which may be all a candidate needs to see before deciding to apply.

Recruitment SEO strategies are very different from other marketing strategies. What works for marketing SaaS products, for example, might not work for recruiters. While both will use meta descriptions and keywords, these will be very different. Make sure your careers page includes the keywords you uncovered during your research stage.

SEO and how it relates to social media can be a confusing subject. Search engines have always downplayed how much they use social media signals to affect SERP rankings. While that remains true, the fact is those social media signals can have an indirect effect on SEO:

Improved online visibility and website traffic

Advances in domain authority (and brand awareness)

Larger audience reach for your recruitment ads

Major gains on local SEO strategies

Of course, the main advantage of aligning your social media with your recruitment strategy is that it gives the best candidates another communication channel to touch base with. Your HR team can answer specific questions about a role or the company. This helps to cut down on the number of unsuitable candidates that slow down the recruitment process.

Always make sure your job posts on social media platforms are easy to share. If a viewer sees that advert and immediately shares it with someone relevant, that’s a win for your recruitment team.

Using SEO Strategies and Technology in Recruitment

Digital marketing methods like SEO aren’t the only tool available to recruiters. AI is being used by HR teams for many reasons, not least sourcing new candidates to hire. Just like this, automation, and talent rediscovery software – which all have their place in modern recruitment – SEO is another tool to have at your disposal.

For HR teams, recruitment specialists, and internal recruiters, digital marketing strategies are simply one more resource to be used. Without well-implemented recruitment SEO, adverts will quickly disappear onto page two of Google search results, and the best candidates will never find you.

If they don’t see your perfect job advert, they can’t apply. Don’t let that happen to your company. Use the 6 proven SEO strategies for recruitment that will get you the best candidates today to make the most of your recruitment drive.