HR SEO: Here’s how to write job ads that are found in Google

With human capital being one of the 6 capital types in the <IR> Integrated Reporting Framework, talent retention becomes a major competitive advantage for any business organisation. As labour markets are getting back to normal after the COVID-19 pandemic, companies again struggle with recruitment of talented employees ahead of others.

What has changed though is the way they do it in the post-pandemic world because digital ways of doing business have started to play a more important role in almost any business process, including HR. Let’s see how SEO helps with that.

Getting the most out of Google SEO

The good news is that the main logic of search engine optimisation works perfectly for getting higher search engine positions in Google job search results the same way it works for any post being of interest for your organization. Same as always, keywords in job description are vital for efficient SEO for job postings.

The search engine optimisation specialist job position is itself one of the best illustrative examples of how using job description keywords can make hiring much easier with better search engine positions. Here are its main specifics:

1. It is one of the most highly demanded specialisations nowadays, which means harsh competition;
2. The SEO specialist job description implies highly developed skills to analyse and implement timely changes to the website in order to increase traffic, which is the foundation of electronic commerce;
3. The advent of online education platform has made SEO certifications quite easy to obtain;
4. With the start of the global pandemic in March 2020, many office workers were put on furlough and involuntarily got some spare time. Many then used it to master new important skills online, so now the supply of SEO specialists is higher than ever.

Easy hiring with effective backlinks

Building up a healthy portfolio of backlinks is crucial as always, although the subject under consideration implies certain specificity. For example, consider a multinational company which does its business in numerous geographical locations. The era of the Internet made physical presence unnecessary, and with business operations being performed remotely in lockdown conditions, there’s even no need for employees to attend offices either.

Nevertheless, the global labour market has uneven distribution across regions. There are jurisdictions known for their high standards of traditional education where it is better for HR departments to hire people with developed “soft” skills. Or there are many developing economies like India which provide brilliant IT specialists, although their educational standards may lack recognition in the West. Adding dofollow Indian backlinks to your job post greatly increases chances that a talented SEO specialist from Delhi or Mumbai reads your job ad and responds.

Make sure you have the right keywords

Job description keywords are very important for more than one reason.

• They can make it as specific as you need. For example, if you’re hiring a potent search engine optimization specialist, it is advised to add keywords in the job description which signal your organization’s demands for candidates with a desired educational background (“technological university”) or language skills (“TOEFL”).
• At the same time, they can make your job post come higher in Google search engine positions. In that case, keywords specificity may not be the main influencing factor, but the art of choosing job posting keywords is, among other things, what talented SEO specialists are valued for. “Content writing” is just one of probably thousands of examples.

Leverage blog posts

Finally, in order to increase rankings among other Google job search results, why not add backlinks to your job ad in other posts in social media and blog posts? After all, blog posting is an important tool of search engine optimization. Adding the click here button somewhere on Facebook or even on your website will serve as a direct invitation for all those interested in the subject matter to follow the link directly to the job description and see whether they’re fit for the job position being offered.

Smart SEO for job postings

It appears that all “smart” techniques for job postings actually come from common sense familiar to those in the field of search engine optimisation. Although there may be certain restrictions on job post aggregators like Upwork, the main goal is still getting higher rankings. Careful choosing of keywords in job descriptions (depending on who you’re hiring and where) and using the advantages of backlinks in blog posts can really do the trick.  

This article was originally published in November 2021.