Deciding on the best way to integrate a job board into your current website can be a struggle for associations and publishers who are starting or rebooting a job board to generate revenue and provide value for their members or readership. We’ve outlined below three different ways you can set up your organization’s job board, as well as what types of scenarios make sense for each one.
Companion Set-Up on a Subdomain
This is the most common choice for those associations and publishers that already have an established website with lots of content. For example, your association may already be using some kind of membership software or other tools that connect members to restricted pages or content like courses, forums, ebooks, and member directories. Similarly, for those of you who are publishers, you may have many years’ worth of content on your site, feature content for paid subscribers only, or have an existing system for registering readers.
In these cases, associations and publishers usually find it makes sense to host their job board on a subdomain – something like jobs.mycoolnewssite.com or careers.yourassociation.com.
For those wishing to restrict the job board content to members only, opting for a single sign-on set-up can reduce friction for members – meaning they only have to sign in once to access both your main site and your job board.
At Careerleaf we affectionately refer to this set-up as a “companion” job board!
Standalone Job Board Set-Up on a Main Website
If your association website doesn’t have a lot of content or functionality, or you’re a publisher who wants your job board to take centre-stage, one option is to combine your current website with your job board.
When using a job board solution that lets you customize the design and manage content easily, this can be a great way to kill two birds with one stone. This option especially makes sense for associations who are just beginning to expand their digital offerings and aiming to generate more non-dues revenue.
This is also a great option for associations and publishers whose strategy includes using job content as a form of lead-generation for increasing traffic, subscriptions, or membership sales. For publishers whose target market and content is focused on career development, this option also makes it easier to seamlessly integrate the experience of consuming content with searching and applying for jobs.
Standalone Job Board Set-Up on a Unique Domain
For established associations and publishers with serious brand name recognition and sales and marketing resources, it can make sense to go all out in separating your job board from your main site.
When your job board strategy includes bringing people in from both outside and inside the ranks of your membership or readership, creating a standalone job board on a unique domain helps people think of it as not just an extension of your main business, but a destination that exists on its own merit.
If you’re ready to update the job board for your association or digital news/media site, make sure you consider which set-up option fits best with your content, marketing, and integration needs.
Image credit: Boris Smokrovic