There is so much about Search Engine Optimization out there and everybody has an opinion. It’s difficult to sift through what’s true, what’s outdated, and what’s just smoke and mirrors sold at a high price. So we put together three sensible, but maybe not-so-obvious, ways to improve your SEO:
- Improve Your Design
Nobody wants to spend time on your ugly old site. It’s a hard truth, but there it is.
If you’ve got a cramped and cluttered design, with tiny, hard-to-read text, people aren’t going to take the action you want them to on your site, including linking to your site and sharing your content. A clean and easy to read site makes your calls to action stand out and easier to find, instead of drowning them in a sea of distraction.
Make it easy for your customers to find that “Post a Job” link, and make it simple for candidates to browse and search jobs. People who like your site will use it and stay there, and not just bounce away. Search engines track that, and it affects how your site ranks.
- Create Quality Content (& Share It)
Post jobs. Quality jobs. Figure out what your niche or advantage is — is it that you specialize in a certain industry or job sector? Is it that you post jobs for a particular region? A certain type of job, like part-time or contract positions? Focus on what makes you great, and seek to help the people you serve.
Post to your blog. Use social media. If you’re in the business of running a job board, you likely have a fair bit of knowledge, experience, and observations to share with job seekers, employers, and recruiters, so share it with the world! Give people more reasons to come to your site, more ways to find your site, and keep it on their radar. If you actually are providing things that people want and need, and you make it easy for them to find it, it will only help your SEO.
- Build Your Website for Humans
Google and Bing constantly changing its rules and how they rank websites in search results. There is no gaming the system, no secret code you can plug in, no magic spell you can cast that will push you to the first page of search results. It’s hard to hear for some people, because we so want to believe that the quick fixes people promise will come true.
What we will say is that it’s best to build your website in a way that makes sense for humans. Don’t fill your URLs with stuff that looks like this: yourdomain.com/0814092/post/1/3802/108.html
Instead, try this: yourdomain.com/jobs/administrative-assistant-in-boston-ma/
Which one do you think Google will like better? The one that reads like something an actual human being might search for? Or the one that’s just a bunch of numbers? Use common sense, and think about what people search and how they search for it.