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Are Vendors Giving You Truthful Information about HR SEO? follow this blog post

Multiple recruitment Search Engine Optimization (HR SEO) vendors have sprung up in the wake of HR realizing that they should be branding themselves and not the job boards, which is creating a lot of confusion regarding SEO. I have heard and seen multiple examples of this including check boxes placed on ATS systems that allow you to SEO your jobs, case studies completed where the keyword search has no keyword volume at all, and the list continues. I believe it's unfair to mislead an audience that may not be educated about the SEO space into thinking that a job distribution model will create a SEO strategy. This is the furthest thing from the truth when in reality they are buying pay-per click and performing Search Engine Marketing (SEM) instead of true SEO.

For SEO to be effective you have to have multiple ingredients for it to work and more importantly work effectively. What I mean by work effectively is if I were to get you a #1 ranking in Google for a keyword phrase like seattle welding jobs you would think this is effective. However if I did keyword research on seattle welding jobs and found that the keyword volume (this is the amount of times someone searches on the keyword) has no supported data or very little data that means that no one is searching that keyword phrase. You would be #1 in Google for a phrase that no one ever searches on which means that the SEO strategy didn't help you at all to capture more candidates in natural search. This is only one example of what you should be educated about when selecting an SEO vendor.

Here are the multiple ingredients that make up a true SEO strategy and the work that goes into increasing your SEO ranking.

1. Back Links - A back link is when a website places a link to your site on theirs. Back linking is not placing a link on your site to another.
2. Page Rank - Google measures page rank from 0-10 with 10 being the best. You can get the Google toolbar here to see your page rank.
3. Content - Search engines love good content and the more you have the better off you will be to get pushed up in rankings.
4. Title Tags - This is the title of what the page says when you log onto it.
5. Meta Tags - Keywords that the search engine robots know how to index and your site
6. Submission - The website needs to be submitted to the search engines to find it.
7. Manual Submission - Some search engines don't automate your submission so it needs to be done by hand.
8. Ranking Monitoring - Just because a site reaches #1 in a search engine doesn't mean it will stay there.

These are a just few things that go into making a webpage SEO optimized. If your considering SEO and talking with vendors make sure to ask them the above referenced questions. You will learn a lot about what their system, product or person does and is capable of and how that's different from just job distribution.

4 comments

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  • 1 point 3 months ago

    Nicole, I have found that a site that is brand new needs to be submitted to engines.  Bing is a manual submit (vs semi-automatic).  I do agree search engines feed off of one another.  If your important in one the bots from others will take note and index you. 

  • 1 point 3 months ago

    I usually just sumit the XML to webmaster tools and baby sit from there but, you're right a brand new site might need the extra "push" via manual submission. :)

     

  • 1 point 3 months ago

    Hi Jason - Great post. Sadly, I've heard many SEO providers flat out lie about what SEO can do for an organization. They take advantage of company's that don't understand SEO/SEM.

    SEO is not an all-encompassing fix, it is one tool that if leveraged correctly gives you another avenue to attract candidate traffic. Being that so many job searches are being conducted within search engines, it makes sense to incorporate SEO into your recruiting strategy.

    I agree with most of your points. I have just a few comments

    According to many of today's stats, 70-80% of internet searches are unique. While I agree it's important that the words you are targeting are being searched, you can't make all of your SEO targeting decisions based on keyword research tools. They give historical data only. Besides if you target the long tail phrase of "Software Engineer Job San Jose California" you essentially have multiple searches you can be found for including...

    • Software Engineer Job San Jose California
    • Software Engineer Job San Jose
    • Software Engineer Job
    • Software Engineer

    In my opinion optimizing for the long tail really just broadens the net of what you can be found relevant for. (if done properly that is)

    6. Submission - Although manually submitting to the engines doesn't hurt. I have not manually submitted a site for years. Search engines come by on their own time. Niche search engines get results from the big 3 engines anyway....so if you are in Google, Yahoo and the new MSN (Bing) you should be all set. I say this because some SEO providers will charge a client extra for this..."for 500.00 we'll submit your site to 1,000's of search engines" it's a waste of money in my opinion.

    I'm curious what engines have you had to manually submit to.

  • 1 point 4 months ago

    Great job Jason, I have talked to ATS venders at trade shows and they all have standard responses to our inquires about if their system is SEO friendly. Venders say that hosting the jobs on our site has little to no value on search ranking. I have to say BS, as our job pages are ranked among the highest in Canada because we attempt to do the things you suggest and because we post to our own site.