What are the most important SEO factors for staffing and recruiting firms?

We get this question a lot and if you ask any search engine optimization expert, they will share the first two keys I’ve listed below. But for staffing and recruiting companies, number three is critically important as well. So, let’s dig deeper into the three key SEO factors for staffing and recruiting companies:

Content
In order to rank well in search, your site should be rich with great content. But you can’t just create some content and then rest on your laurels. You should have a proactive plan in place to continually add fresh and relevant content. 

Google rewards sites that add value, answer search queries and engage visitors. You can do this by adding valuable content to your site in the form of blog posts, articles, whitepapers, video, infographics, case studies, tutorials, list articles, Q&A posts and other value-added content. Begin by thinking about the questions and comments you continually get from your associates and clients. If they are asking you these questions, you can rest assured that other people are searching the Internet for answers as well. 

By answering these questions through great content on your site, you’ll earn more valuable traffic to your site and convert those visitors into employees and clients over time. When publishing content, look at different formats as well. Sites that offer multimedia in the form of video, podcasts, infographics, etc. outperform those that are just text-based.

Inbound Links
Google, Bing and other search engines use inbound links as a way to determine if your website is authoritative. If other well-respected and authoritative websites are linking back to you, that’s a signal that your site is valuable. 

In the past, it was about building as many inbound links as you possibly could (quantity mattered). Today, building quality inbound links is more important. Sites that have earned quality backlinks are more trusted and will have a much better opportunity to rank highly in search results than sites without quality backlinks. The best way to earn more backlinks from reputable sites is by publishing great content that people will want to link to. Here are some other tips to consider as well:

• Write guest blogs on other websites.

• Make sure all local and industry associations you belong to provide a link back to your website.

• Write guest columns for local or industry publications.

• Make sure your online citations are current and up to date (consider a service like Yext to do this).

• Write testimonials for your vendors. They can highlight them on their website and you earn a link back (win-win).

• Create a partner page on your website and “trade” links with your partners/vendors.

• Make sure you claim your company pages on all social platforms and include links back to your site.

• Develop relationships with local college career offices. Earning links from .edu sites can really improve your inbound link profile. Share career articles, jobs and more.

• Publish infographics and share them with other publishers.

• Create great linkable content like salary guides, job descriptions, white papers, etc.

Jobs
Most SEO experts will stop at the two keys that I just listed. At the end of the day, it really comes down to great content and links. But for staffing and recruiting companies, there is one more crucial factor--your jobs. 

It’s not good enough to just list your job openings. Your jobs need to have the appropriate Schema markup to be indexed by Google and pulled into Google For Jobs. As more and more job seekers are going directly to Google to start their job search, it’s critical that your postings are coded in a way that is Google for Jobs compliant, so they appear on job search results. For more details on this, make sure you visit our recent post on Google for Jobs. This post walks through some of the technical details to ensure your jobs are indexable and get more traffic!

Is staffing SEO that easy?

Yes, and no. Those truly are the three biggest keys to SEO in the staffing and recruiting industry. If you follow those consistently, over time you’ll see increased results and more traffic. 

But there are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of other factors that fall under each of those categories. If you would like more details simply contact us today and one of our staffing SEO experts would be happy to help.

Other Staffing SEO Resources:

Staffing SEO 101 Ebook

Staffing SEO in 2018 Webinar

Staffing SEO Articles

About Haley Marketing Group

Haley Marketing provides website development, email and content marketing, social media marketing and strategy consulting to the staffing industry. We provide services to more than 1,200 staffing and recruiting firms throughout the world, ranging from solo recruiters to larger staffing and recruiting organizations with regional, national and international offices. Our mission is simple: to make great marketing more affordable!

About Brad Smith, Director of SEO & Social Media

What do you get when you combine a Masters in Education, Bachelors in Psychology and Communication with experience in marketing, advertising and PR? The staffing industry’s leading SEO and social media expert, of course! From his origins as a Marketing Advisor to his current role as Director of SEO & Social Media, Brad’s main focus has been working with clients to develop and implement strategic marketing plans. As our resident digital marketing guru, Brad’s job is to make sure that your online presence attracts the attention it deserves (and steals traffic from your competition!).