seo for recruiting white paper

Search Engine Optimization (Career Site Optimization)Important considerations and questions to ask yourself and possible vendors prior to investing in this important part of your interactive recruiting strategy.

Developed by:Dr. Douglas BergFounder & Chief Innovation OfficerJobs2Web Inc.

ContentsIntroduction ...................................................................................................... 2

Why should you take this topic seriously? ...................................................... 4 Employers who have SEO/CSO as a part of their interactive strategy will have a distinct competitive advantage in the recruiting marketplace.

How candidates search for jobs on Google ..................................................... 5Learn how candidates use Google to search for jobs and what the top searched “job” related terms are. Also learn the difference between SEO and SEM/PPC.

Can candidates find your career site (or jobs) on Google? ............................ 6Most employers have nicely designed career sites that are good for candidates, but they are not optimized for search engine users to find them.

Using SEO to attract talent to your career site and jobs ................................ 7Learn how top companies are launching SEO strategies to optimize their career site and job content to attract candidates directly to their career sites.

Rankings and SEO optimization process ...................................................... 10See where you need to rank in order to make SEO a success for your recruiting, and the process you need to go through to get online.

Measuring your SEO/SEM results ...................................................................12Tracking results and justifying your ROI with any interactive recruiting campaigns and programs.

Key questions to ask any SEO/CSO vendor ................................................... 14Picking the right SEO/CSO vendor will make the difference between whether your Web 2.0 efforts will succeed or not.

Glossary of terms and frequently asked questions ...................................... 18Web 2.0 buzzwords you need to know, and commonly asked questions employers have when considering SEO as part of their strategy.

Introduction: SEO vs. CSO

FACT: There are more than 124 million “job”-related searches every month on Google. 1

PROBLEM: Yet most employers’ jobs are completely hidden from candidates online.

SOLUTION: Smart employers will utilize search engine optimization (SEO) to drive these job seekers directly to their own career site, which then plays a major role in decreasing their job board spend.

Terms Defined: To help avoid confusion with the new world of Web 2.0 marketing, here are definitions of two confusingly similar terms to help you as you read this report.

This white paper primarily focuses on Search Engine Optimization (sometimes mistakenly referred to as Career Site Optimization), along with other ways to drive job-seeker traffic to your online career site.

Please also review our Glossary of Terms at the end of this paper to learn about other buzzwords that are often used in the “Web 2.0” recruiting world, so that you can keep yourself on top of the rapidly changing world of interactive recruiting.

Candidates are shifting where they search for jobs, and your

strategy should follow them.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO):The optimizing of job content or career site content, and the creation and submission of site maps daily so that the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN-Live) can correctly index and rank your job and career site content highly within the “organic” search results.

The desired end result is that when candidates perform logical keyword searches on the search engines, your jobs and career site would be highly ranked within the search results (organic, NOT paid results), and job seekers would then be able to link directly to your career site to view and apply for jobs -- at no cost to you for visitors or clicks.

Primary Goal of SEO: Drive increased traffic to your career site and reduce your dependency on expensive paid job boards.

CAREER SITE OPTIMIZATION (CSO):The optimizing of your candidates experience while on your career site. This could include the integration of any of these technologies into your career site:

• Live chat between candidates and recruiters • Simplified job search process • Creation of rich job profiles or improving the

look, feel, and layout of job content • Adding streaming video or other rich

media online • Providing RSS feeds or other content-sharing

tools • Allowing candidates to easily set up email

job alerts • Enhanced visitor tracking and reporting tools

Primary Goal of CSO: Maximize your candidates’ experience and increase the conversion or capture rate of candidates that visit your career site.

2© Copyright 2009 Jobs2Web.

1Source: Google Adwords

Introduction: SEO vs. PPC

What’s The Difference Between SEO & SEM/PPC? Many people confuse Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Enging Marketing, also known as Pay-Per-Click advertising (SEM/PPC). The difference is important because vendors often profess to provide SEO services, when they in fact only do SEM/PPC.

Where Do You Click?Most of us like using Google because we usually get relevant results for our searches and can find the information we need. But do you click on the “organic” results, which are in the area so designated below, or the ads in the “Paid Search” area, also shown below?

Organic Search Results (SEO) These are also called the natural search results and are the Google recommended results. It is in this area where nearly 80% of users click, because the results are so relevant.

To take proper advantage of organic results, you must have customized landing pages for every possible job search that users could perform for your jobs. Just having a good career site “home page” isn’t going to help you win first-page placement on Google.

It can take months to get your recruiting results into the organic results area of Google search results. But, once you are in this position, it becomes a recruiting asset your company can use for years to come to attract talent directly to your career site. And you can reduce your recruiting costs dramatically, because there’s no charge when users click on these results online.

Paid Search Results (SEM/PPC) Results in the area labeled “Paid” to the immediate left are called SEM/PPC results. In these, people have paid to get their keywords advertised to users. This is where approximately 20% of users click when doing searches online, a much lower percentage than for “organic” results.

This is also how Google makes billions of dollars, because the results of this type of advertising are dramatically better than such old-fashion methods as the Yellow Pages.

Paid search is where employers can buy their way to the top of the search engines and attract traffic to their career sites. It can provide fast results, but is not inexpensive. (See below)


Keyword SearchesPer Month

Cost PerClick

Manager Jobs

Sales Jobs

Marketing Jobs

Medical Jobs

Engineer Jobs

Admin Jobs

$2.87

$2.72

$3.00

$3.83

$3.18

$1.58

3.3 Million

2.2 Million

1.2 Million

1.2 Million

1 Million

823,000

How much can SEM/PPC cost?Job boards use both SEO and SEM to drive candidates to themselves, in order to re-sell them to you and thousands of other employers. This has driven up the costs for PPC significantly for “job” related keywords.

SAMPLE COSTS:

80% of Clicks

20% ofClicks


Source: Google Adwords

SEARCH ENGINES USED BY JOB SEEKERS:

With all these job related searches online, you’d think employers would want to compete for these job seekers, as 80% of candidates begin their job searches on the major search engines, and NOT on the job boards.

Be Your Own MonsterSmart employers will increasingly deploy an SEO strategy that helps them compete directly with the job boards for candidates, so they can acquire them prior to joining any job board. Such a strategy will give these employers a competitive advantage. Plus, once such a strategy is established online, the company will continue to attract talent to its career site every day. Why? Because SEO is an asset that continues to bring you talent over time.

Top Reasons for Using SEO Recruiting: 1. Decreases dependency on expensive job boards. 2. Makes it easier for candidates to find your jobs. 3. Gets to talent before they reach the job boards. 4. Enhances employer branding online. 5. Reduces recruiting costs and time to fill jobs.

Search Term

“Free” searches

“Downloads” searches

“Jobs” related searches

“Music” searches

“Cars” searches

“Love” searches

414 Million

124 Million

124 Million

84 Million

83.1 Million

83.1 Million

Our visitor data shows that most job seekers prefer to use Google when doing job searches. This data was based on more than 100,000 career site visitors that were driven directly to our clients’ career sites in October 2008.

Why should you take this topic seriously?

Have you searched for “jobs” on Google lately?If so, you’ll find that the job boards dominate both the “organic” and “paid” search results on the major search engines -- and for good reason. It’s where they get most of their candidates, which they then resell to employers like you!

Unfortunately, candidates rarely see any employers listed in the first page of Google search results because these employers’ career sites aren’t optimized for the search engines.

So, You’ve Heard of Google, Right?So has nearly 100% of the rest of the internet population. But, did you know that “job” searches are in the top 10 keyword searches on Google, and that these are performed more than 124 million times each month?

Google72%

MSN/Live15%

Yahoo!7%

Others6%

There are more than 124 million

searches for “jobs” monthly

on Google.2


Average Monthly Searches

JOB BOARD TRAFFIC DECLINING

As job board traffic continuesto decrease, employers are seeking

new sources of candidates.

This Alexa report shows that job board traffic (as a percentage of total Internet reach) has declined significantly as candidates shift their job search efforts to new Web 2.0 channels online.

2Source: Google Adwords

Top State Searches for “Jobs” Top Functional Searches for “Jobs” AverageSearches/Mo

AverageSearches/Mo

california jobsnew york jobstexas jobsflorida jobsgeorgia jobsillinois jobsohio jobsarizona jobsmassachusetts jobsmichigan jobsnew jersey jobsnorth carolina jobspennsylvania jobsvirginia jobswashington jobscolorado jobsminnesota jobsmissouri jobstennessee jobsconnecticut jobsindiana jobs

sales jobsmarketing jobsmedical jobscustomer service jobsadministrative jobsmanagement jobsaccounting jobshuman resources jobsnurse jobsnursing jobsoffice jobswarehouse jobsconstruction jobsexecutive jobsgovernment jobsreceptionist jobsretail jobsclerical jobsengineering jobsentry level jobsfinance jobs

5,000,0003,350,0003,350,0002,740,0002,740,0002,240,0001,830,0001,500,0001,500,0001,500,0001,500,0001,500,0001,500,0001,220,0001,220,0001,000,0001,000,0001,000,0001,000,000

823,000823,000

2,240,000 1,220,000 1,220,000 1,000,000 823,000 823,000

673,000 673,000 673,000 673,000 673,000 673,000 550,000 550,000 550,000 550,000 550,000 368,000 368,000 368,000 368,000

How candidates search for jobs on Google

Have you searched for “jobs” on Google lately?Knowing how candidates search for “jobs” online is the key to understanding what you need to do in order to attract them to your company career site -- and what changes you’ll need to make in order to capture their interest when searching online.

Candidates rarely search by company name!If you search for your “company name” plus the word “ jobs” or “careers” on Google, you might find your company on the first page of the search results, and then think you’re in good shape. However, candidates rarely search for companies by name.

Instead, candidates search for jobs by location and/or job function or title nearly 85% of the time—versus employers by name only 15% of the time... and, even then, you’ll have to be a big, branded company to win this traffic.

Example searches: “New York Sales Jobs”, “Chicago Nursing Jobs”


WHAT JOB SEEKERS SEARCH FOR:

Location

Occupation

Skills/Generic

Employer

Brand


Can candidates find you on Google?

While most companies have invested heavily in their career websites, the main goal was to get their jobs online and provide basic information to candidates such as benefits, culture, etc.

Unfortunately, how most companies have utilized their ATS vendors to power their job search engine on their career sites has actually blocked Google from finding any job-related content -- therefore keeping these jobs hidden from candidates online.

Why Are My Jobs Hidden from Google?If you’re like many employers, you have an applicant tracking system (ATS) that powers the job-search-and-apply process on your career site. While these ATS systems are good at helping candidates find jobs once they’re on your career site, they aren’t built well for the search engine spiders to index your job content.

For example, most career sites typically require candidates to perform a keyword or category search to find jobs of interest -- and then shows them the list of jobs to view. Unfortunately, the search engine spiders don’ t know how to perform that search, and therefore will never see your jobs online because they are hidden behind the keyword search utility.

Even if the search engines could find your job content, the ATS systems don’t perform basic SEO tasks, which would be required to help your job content to show up in the search results on Google or other major search engines.

SEO WARNING:Just because your jobs are “indexed” on Google does NOT mean you’re getting any traffic. This just means that Google has your jobs in the index, but they are most likely not optimized for meaningful keyword searches.


Are you playing hide- and-seek

online with your candidates?

1. Open a browser and go to your company’s career site.2. Copy the entire URL of your career site into your clip

board.(Example: “www.companyurl.com/careers/”)3. Open another browser, and go to Google.4. In the search box, type “Site:” and then paste your URL.

(Example: “site:www.companyurl.com/careers/”)

The search results will show you how many of your career site pages and jobs are indexed on Google.

Typically, you’ll only see a few of your primary pages, such as your benefits, culture, and other non-job pages — which means that none of your jobs are visible to Google, and therefore candidates won’t find any of your jobs online.

How To Test If You’re Blocked/Hidden:

TOP REASONS YOUR JOBS ARE HIDDEN:

1. Jobs hidden behind keyword search tool (sometimes login even required to view).

2. Job search and results are in “frames” (or pop up windows) to keep your employer branding priority.

3. Job content not optimized for SEO (using search keywords in job views).

4. Not submitting daily sitemaps of jobs to the search engines.

5. Use of bad job titles, including abbreviations and non-searched terms.

6. No location data within jobs, such as spelled out state names, zip codes, or nearest major-market names.

bot

Using SEO to attract talent to your career site and jobs

Getting your company’s job and recruiting keywords highly ranked on Google means that you can drive candidates directly to your career site, where they can apply directly into your ATS system.

This helps smart employers compete directly with job boards, who today monopolize this source of candidates.

Targeted Searches Require Targeted Landing PagesOne of the reasons people love Google is because of how it helps them find relevant information. In other words, if a candidate is searching for “Arizona Clinical Nurse Jobs” they know that Google will help them find sites and pages that match that search. Once candidates click on any link promising to show them these types of jobs, they expect to see a page that contains those results immediately, or they will leave.

Candidates Search On Google Candidates Land On Targeted Landing Page

STOP HIDING AND GET FOUND ONLINE!While using Google is very easy, getting ranked on Google is another matter. It typically requires someone with significant SEO expertise and a platform that can optimize your jobs and help bridge candidates from Google into your ATS system, based on your currently open jobs.


Drive candidates directly to your

career site to apply.

CandidatesApply ToYour ATS

1 2

3

1. Candidates search on Google. (Using logical search terms).2. They land on targeted landing pages.

With matching available jobs from your ATS.3. They apply directly to your ATS system.

(Along with source tagging info if possible).

HOW IT WORKS:

Using SEO to attract talent to your career site and jobsThe Benefits of Targeted Landing PagesBy having “Talent Landing Pages,” we provide your company with a recruiting platform that helps you deploy a cutting-edge interactive recruiting strategy that beats most job boards.

Provides You With a Constant Recruiting PresenceThe best thing about Talent Landing Pages is that they stay online constantly, which helps you to rise and maintain your search rankings, even if you don’t have open positions available.

Many SEO providers will tell you that just getting the jobs indexed is all that matters. However, you will rarely get a specific job ranked in the first page of Google because jobs go online and offline in just a few days, which doesn’t give them enough time to rise in the search rankings. Talent Landing Pages however, stay online and change daily as your jobs go in and out of them.

You can still capture interested candidates who email or RSS subscribe to their jobs of interest. This allows you to build a pipeline of talent who will receive auto generated emails with new matching jobs when they are posted into your ATS system.

This means that you don’t have to start from scratch to market each job by posting into the paid job boards, but can leverage your own growing “talent community” database. The result is fill more jobs directly and faster than before.

Why Can’t I Do This Myself?Trying to optimize your own career site, and changing your ATS, is a losing battle. Most HR leaders rarely get support from their internal IT or marketing teams .

Even if you had 100% of their support, trying to build hundreds or thousands of keyword-specific landing pages representing your recruiting needs would take weeks and months of time, making this effort cost-prohibitive -- not to mention that there’s no guarantee they will understand how SEO works, which could result in it not working at all.

Branded to your company• Uses you current logo, style, and content• Links to your existing career site• Custom URL of your choosing

Targeted recruitment and job messaging• By keyword and location• By business unit, brand, division, or recruiter

Ability to capture passive job seekers• Via email capture or RSS feed• Automatically matches & emails future jobs

Updated and matching jobs from your ATS• Puts candidates one click from applying

for jobs• Scraped daily and optimized for search


Using SEO to attract talent to your career site and jobs

In order to do an SEO strategy correctly, you need to know what keywords to focus on, and what types of expectations toset in order to achieve success.


What keywords should you

expect to get ranked with?

How Long Does It TakeDepending on how you set-up your SEO program, it typically takes between three and six months before you get consistent rankings on the search engines.

Google specifically places significant weight on the age of any domain prior to giving it premium rankings. But, assuming you have all the elements of your site in place, and begin to get credible “back links” to your SEO site, you can accelerate your lift within the engines.

Once you have your rankings in place, you can (and will) float up and down the firstpage of results with certain keywords, depending on competition and changes in the Google algorithm. This is exactly why it’s important to monitor your rankings over time, and determine if you need to make changes in order to maintain top positions.

Other Types of SearchesCandidates don’t only search for “jobs” online.They use several keywords when looking for jobs. Here are a few other keywords you’ll need to consider:

• Employment – 45 million searches monthly. Adding this keyword to your SEO mix will help you to capture these job seekers also.

• Careers – 11 million searches monthly. Make sure that you optimize the career profiles that you commonly recruit for to win these job seekers.

• Salary – 11 million searches monthly. One of the first things candidates do when they’re getting itchy is to search for salary data with their job title. This is a perfect time to capture their attention.

• Resume – 6 million searches monthly. Candidates search for resumes online when they are seeking to update their own prior to starting a job search. This is the perfect time to capture them prior to getting their resume out to the masses.

Short: 1-2 Keywords“finance jobs”

Mid: 3-4 Keywords“denver finance jobs”“colorado finance jobs”

Long: 5+ Keywords“colorado springs finance jobs”“finance jobs in aspen colorado”

Unique Search Volume

Keyw

ord

Com

peti

tion

High Volume Multiple/Long Keyword Searches

Hig

h Vo

lum

e Si

ngle

/Sho

rt K

eyw

ords

LongTail

Mid Tail Searches(These are the sweetspot for employers)

ShortTail

Short Tail Searches

Mid Tail Searches

Long Tail Searches

While these are tempting keywords to go after with SEO, there is so much competition that rarely will a single employer get ranked on the first page of Google with these terms. You would be better off using targeted PPC to reach these users.

These terms are how 85% of all candidates search for jobs, and are the “sweet spot” of search activity because they are achievable for employers and there is enough search volume to justify the effort to gain ranking and traffic.

While these terms are easier to get ranked on the first page of Google, the volume of searches is so low that it rarely is worth performing SEO for these types of searches, and because of the uniqueness of these searches, you’d have to create thousands of search combinations in order to win traffic.


Rankings – where you need to be

Just getting your jobs “indexed” on Google isn’t enough. You must get “ranked” in order to win traffic and make your SEO strategy a success.


Where Do You Need To Be

Ranked To Win?

Where Do You Need to Be Ranked to Win?Many people wonder how high in the search results you need to be to drive traffic to your site. Jobs2Web know this based on our years of experience and the depth of our client network.

The following charts show where you need to be ranked online in order to get enough traffic to justify doing an SEO strategy. Otherwise, even if you get SEO service for free, it won’t be worth your time invested. This data was analyzed from over 100,000 SEO career site visitors in a single month, and where the keywords were ranked.

What Page of Google This shows what page number on Google the keywords were ranked.

Getting “Ranked” on Google Getting ranked on Google (or any search engine) means getting your keywords into the first page of Google searches for the keywords that match your recruiting needs, and from which you’ll get most of your traffic. As you can see, 75% of candidates will not go past page two in Google search results.

Also, being ranked in position 1-5 on the first page of Google yields 82% of all the clicks. This means most candidates won’t even scroll down to the bottom of the first page to view all the results.

What First Page PositionThis shows what position the keyword was on in the first page of Google search results.

Getting “Indexed” on GoogleThis means that you only got your job content visible to Google, in that your jobs are listed somewhere within the search engine. But they are not “ranked,” which typically means they are not keyword-optimized for logical searches that will drive meaningful results for your recruiting program.

WARNING: Many SEO providers in the recruiting world are not doing true SEO, but instead are just helping employers get their jobs indexed by Google. This rarely drives any meaningful traffic and only means your jobs are just a tiny needle in a very big haystack online.

82%

75%

SEO optimization process

1. Review HiringNeeds

Recruiting SEOOptimization

Process

2. KeywordResearch

7. Tra�c & RankingReporting

3. Site Creation &Submission

6. Candidate Capture& Delivery

4. Create TalentLanding Pages

5. Job OptimizationDistribution


STEP: DESCRIPTION:

Any true optimization process needs to start by defining what your hiring needs are for the next 12 months, not just what jobs you have open today.

Good SEO requires extensive research to determine what keywords are being searched for by candidates online, not just using your existing job titles which may never be found online.

There are several aspects to creating a comprehensive SEO career micro site:• Logo, colors, navigation• Content (keywords, job profiles/branding, streaming video, etc.)• Daily job scrape from your ATS and configuration of apply process• Daily sitemap creation and submission to major search engines and directories• Back linking (from your career site, and other strategic sites online to increase popularity)

Targeted Landing Pages that are optimized for your recruiting keywords and must stay online constantly to get ranked, yet contain your updated active jobs within them. In some cases you may have 3-4 SEO pages for each hiring profile in order to capture the different ways that candidates could search for your jobs. (Example: “Denver Nursing Jobs”, “Denver RN Jobs”, “Denver Nurse Jobs”)

Optimizing your jobs means including your branding and navigation into every job, along with inserting top searched keywords. You’ll also want to automatically distribute your jobs to job aggregators and classifieds sites, along with powering your email and RSS feeds to your internal and external community.

Redirecting candidates into your ATS system is an important step, as many ATS systems have different levels of capability. Not only do you want to land candidates directly on the apply page for the specific job, but you also want to auto-source tag the candidates so that you know where they were referred from online. We also suggest having easy job agent tools that allow you to capture passive candidates who aren’t ready to apply yet, so they can return in the future.

It’s important that you measure several elements of your online strategy, but most importantly what sources are referring the best quality candidates to your career site, and where you rank online. SEO providers should be able to provide you with updated reports of where your keywords are ranked on the major search engines, along with exact visitor and applicant tracking.

1. Review Hiring Needs

2. Keyword Research

3. Site Creation & Submission

4. Create Talent Landing Pages

5. Job Optimization & Distribution

6. Candidate Capture & Delivery

7. Ranking & Traffic Reporting

Measuring your SEO/SEM results

Measuring your results with any recruiting program is becoming more vital as budgets are thinned and recruiting strategiesbecome more complex.

Search Engine RankingsAny good SEO vendor will provide you with search engine rankings that show you where your targeted keywords are ranked on the major search engines.

You should be able to click on the link to see your position, as well as track the history of ranking for each term online.

Candidate Specific Source DataMany SEO providers will give you generic visitor reporting tools, which will tell you the total number of visitors you’ve had, how many page views, etc.

A talent-oriented SEO/SEM solution will show you exactly what keywords and source delivered every candidate to your site, along with what keywords they used to search and find your site.

Jobs2Web also provides clients with talent-centric charts that show total traffic by source types (search engines, job boards, social networks, etc.) so you can measure your ROI with each source online.


Stop depending on your

candidates to tell you where they

came from.

Measuring your SEO/SEM results

Measuring your results with any recruiting program is becoming more vital as budgets are thinned and recruiting strategiesbecome more complex.

Search Engine RankingsEver wondered what day of the week or time of day that specific types of candidates are visiting your site?

With our keyword-targeted reporting tools, you can see this type of information for any keyword area or source of candidate traffic.

Candidate Visitor DemographicsMaking sense of “web logs” can be very confusing, but Jobs2Web helps you to see what types of candidates are visiting your site based on the keywords they used to find you.

This helps you to know you are driving the types of candidates to your career site that are in your key need areas.

Applicant Source TrackingOnly Jobs2Web uses its servers to identify exactly who referred applicants to your site. Other sites rely on candidates to pick from a “how did you find us” list, which is highly inaccurate.


Stop depending on your

candidates to tell you where they

came from.

Key questions to ask any SEO/SEM vendor

Performing SEO/SEM online can be very powerful, but it’s also very complicated. There are a lot of “smoke and mirror” vendors in the market. Knowing what questions and criteria to ask will be your key to success.


Choosing the right SEO/CSO

partner will determine your

success.

KEY QUESTIONS: CONSIDERATIONS:

• Force them to show you real examples with logical keyword searches. (These should be “mid-tail” terms, such as “Chicago nursing jobs” etc, where 80% of job type searches happen.)

• Check the search terms one week later to make sure they are still online. (Many firms can amp up a single keyword or two to show up on the first page of Google for a couple of days, for sales purposes, but don’t have a sustainable presence for their clients over time.)

• Don’t fall for the “we have thousands of pages indexed” trick. (This is where an SEO firm does the “site:” search to show that a company’s jobs are indexed by Google. That’s like dumping a bucket of water into the ocean; people will never find them unless they are ranked.)

• The end result of any SEO/SEM effort should be visitor and applicant traffic.

• Any vendor should be able to report exactly how many visitors and what types of candidates they were able to drive to their client network.

• Make sure you understand the difference between what traffic was truly from SEO and what traf-fic resulted from SEO firms driving traffic from their job boards and pretending it was from their SEO efforts.

• Most SEO companies only launch 5-10 targeted landing pages for clients, which is not enough. Jobs2Web creates hundreds or thousands of Talent Landing Pages for our clients in order to cover their recruiting needs.

• Don’t allow an SEO vendor to say, “Every job is its own landing page.” It is true that some jobs can be found online when very detailed searches are done, but it’s rare -- and remember, because jobs go on and off the air frequently, Google can rarely rank them highly because job pages are so quickly on and off the web.

• Jobs2Web has a patent pending on this specific aspect of our technology platform.

• Most vendors don’t do any keyword research for their clients, and just “index” your jobs and push them online.

• This assumes that you are already using top searched keywords within your job titles, and locations, which is rarely the case in most companies.

How many first-page rankings do they have for their clients?

How much total visitor traffic and how many applicants are they driving to their clients each month?

How many SEO (talent-targeted landing pages) do they launch for their average client?

How much keyword research do they perform when optimizing your jobs and career site?


• Most SEO vendors will take your existing job title and place it into the page title and URL of each job posting, which is only a basic starting point for SEO. Unfortunately, it assumes that your job titles are what people will search on.

• Most companies use acronyms and/or goofy job titles (such as “PM” instead of “Project Manager,” or “Programmer” instead of “Developer,” or “RN” instead of “Registered Nurse”), which means that your job titles aren’t written the way that most candidates are searching for jobs online. Unless the SEO vendor can convert your bad job titles into highly searched job titles as a part of the optimization process you will see little success.

• Also, many SEO vendors rely on location data that is within your current jobs, and within your ATS system, which is also limited. In most cases, your ATS vendor only uses state abbreviations (such as “CA” versus “California”), which reduces optimization dramatically because candidates search on the entire state name 4X more than on state abbreviations when seeking job content.

• Does the vendor insert alternate keywords into your job content, so that when people are doing generic industry searches, they find your jobs also? For example, you might be searching for a “Java Developer,” but these candidates will also search for “Computer Jobs” and “IT Jobs,” which you would also want inserted into your job content online.

• Some SEO vendors may only update your jobs weekly online, but good SEO vendors should scrape your jobs daily in order to maintain updated jobs.

• Also, make sure that the SEO vendor removes your jobs from being online within 1-2 days after they are gone from your ATS system. If candidates try to click on your jobs and they are frequent-ly getting “no longer active” errors, it can effect your employer brand negatively with candidates online.

• Many SEO vendors will land candidates back on the home page of your career site when they click to apply. This is very frustrating for candidates and will result in a dramatic drop-off of applicants who are interested in your jobs.

• Make sure that the SEO vendor puts the candidate directly into the apply screen for that exact job within your ATS so it is a seamless process.

• In some cases, ATS systems are limited and will force the SEO provider to put the candidate on the job view screen a second time before starting the apply process, which is unfortunate. But, nevertheless, it is still better than putting them on the home page, where the candidate has to re-find the job online in order to apply.

• Many ATS systems are capable of receiving candidates along with a “source tag,” which means that you can set source of candidate using a parameter, versus having the candidate select “how did you hear about our job,” which is highly inaccurate.

• If your ATS supports this, make sure that your SEO vendor can set that source tag for each candidate, so that you can measure the effectiveness of your SEO provider and the actual applicants and hires that were driven by your provider.

• Also, any SEO provider should be able to provide you with exact reporting of where each applicant came from (within their system), so you can see the online source of each applicant, even prior to them coming to your ATS system. (This is not generic high-level reporting, but should be exact applicant -level tracking for each applicant).

How do they optimize your job-specific content online?

How often do they “scrape” or update jobs from my career site?

Where do they land my candidates when they click to apply to any job?

Can they source-tag candidates into my ATS system?




• There are many new vendors coming out of the woodwork in this exciting new area of online recruiting, but choosing an experienced vendor with proven results will be vital to your success.

• Even larger companies (job boards and/or ad agencies) proclaim to provide these types of services, but in most cases they have either licensed a low-end vendor’s partial platform, or thrown together a beta version of this type of service to see if their client network will buy it.

• Also, many start-up companies or organizations are surfacing who are giving the service away for free to try and get traction. While this is a great way to go to market, make sure you inquire about exact client history and success, as well as the renewal rate of their clients. If their services don’t provide you with success (even if it’s “free”), SEO/SEM will become disheartening and very dif-ficult to sell as a viable strategy in the future, as most of these types of services fail with unproven providers.

• Many SEO providers promise to have you “live in a day,” which means they are simply scraping your jobs and submitting your site to Google. (Good luck if that’s all you get!)

• There is no “easy button” with SEO. It requires initial research and strong implementation, along with ongoing tuning and updates as your recruiting needs change over time.

• Plus, if your ATS system changes, or you have unique reporting needs or targeted campaign requirements, you will want to know that you have a dedicated account manager who understands your company and recruiting strategy and who can assist you in maximizing your results.

• Many SEO vendors actually provide these services as a sub-set of their primary business, which means that innovation and development of new features into their SEO/SEM platform is limited.

• In some cases, the SEO providers are actually job boards first and are only trying to utilize your job content to help lift their own SEO listings to drive traffic to their own job boards. (This can cause competition for the very keywords you are trying to get ranked with, because the job board actu-ally needs people to go to their job board first, versus to your company career site.)

• Be sure you inquire if the SEO-specific aspects of their platform/service are patented (or patent pending), as some providers (like Jobs2Web) have patent-pending technology that was developed early. Should patents be awarded, it could force later-stage vendors to discontinue using SEO elements that are covered by these patents.

• Some vendors will proclaim that they have patents, but these may only be for job-scraping or job-posting technologies, which are not core to SEO.

• Should the patents be awarded, this would mean you would have to start over with your SEO strategy, should the vendor be forced to discontinue utilizing “targeted landing pages” with your specific keywords ranked online.

• Good jobs SEO/SEM vendors will distribute your jobs to a network of job-aggregator and job-classifieds sites, which helps you market your jobs online effectively.

• Some of these sites are free to post your job feeds to, and some are done on a “pay-per-click” basis, which is still a very effective way to promote your jobs online versus expensive job boards that charge hundreds of dollars to post a single job online.

How many live (and paying) clients do they have today, spe-cifically within their SEO service?

How much account management, training, and support do they provide?

Is SEO/SEM their primary business?

Is their technology patented?

What job aggregator or job classified sites do they distribute my jobs to?




• Good SEO and interactive marketing providers will provide you with an RSS feed of your jobs that are branded to your company.

• These are vital for candidates to be able to insert into their blogs, personal home pages, or other RSS feed readers that can help to market your jobs.

• Also, allowing candidates to set up email alerts for matching jobs on your site is a key feature that will help you gather a direct database of candidates that you can market your jobs to in the future.

• CAUTION: Some SEO providers are actually job boards in disguise, and even though they say they provide you with an RSS feed or email marketing of your jobs, the content is actually branded to their job board, and not specifically to your company.

• This also means that the candidates travel back through the job board in order to view/apply for your jobs -- meaning your competitors will also be seen next to your jobs, and you’ll actually be feeding candidates to your competition after they initially visited your company-specific site.

• Any SEO site will need to gain a good “page rank” from Google in order to have a sustained ranking presence on the major search engines.

• Good vendors will teach you how to link to your SEO site from your current corporate page, which will help jump start your linking to your brand, and help leverage your corporate sites brand popularity into your recruiting.

• Also, they should submit your site to credible online sites, including .GOV, .EDU, and .ORG sites that will link to your SEO site as a reference for how and where people can find jobs at your company.

• Good SEO vendors will integrate a “Share” widget that allows your career site visitors to instantly link to your page from popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and many other sites that will help strengthen your back links and popularity online. This turns all your career site visitors into a back-linking army that helps increase your site popularity online.

• CAUTION: Certain SEO vendors will promise you that you can shoot to the top of the list by doing an aggressive “social bookmarking” strategy, or spamming the web with links to your SEO site from blogs and other sites.

• This is known as “black hat” SEO marketing and can have a negative effect on your SEO efforts, your employer brand, and even interfere with your company’s primary online marketing activities.

• A good interactive recruitment marketing platform should power several aspects of your online recruiting strategy, not just your SEO.

• It should also be able to power your social networking strategy, pay-per-click advertising, mobile recruiting, source tracking, talent community, employee referral marketing, alumni and past-applicant recruiting, along with any other elements that you’re trying to manage online.

Do they provide RSS and email marketing as a part of your solution?

Do they do any “back linking” to my SEO site to increase my SEO popularity online?

What other aspects of my interactive recruiting strategy can they provide?



TERM: DESCRIPTION:

Search Engine OptimizationOptimizing your site in a way that helps you get highly ranked keywords on the major search engines, resulting in candidates finding your company when searching for jobs online.

Search Engine MarketingPaying to use the search engine marketing tools such as “Pay Per Click” to drive traffic to your career site using specific keywords and sites you are targeting.

Pay Per Click AdvertisingThese are keywords that you purchase on the major search engines that drive candidate traffic to your career site. You research the keywords, bid for the position you want, build each ad, and determine where candidates will land when clicking. You then pay the bid amount for each time any candidate clicks on any of your ads online.

Applicant Tracking SystemThese are systems typically used by employers to power the job requisition process, and also the job search utility on their career sites. They are also the online system used for candidates to apply to the company, and track the candidate through the apply process.

Cost Per ApplicantThis is the amount of money that a company pays to acquire an applicant from any paid recruiting source. Having a low CPA is typically a good thing, unless any source drives you a significant volume on unqualified applicants. In that case, a lower CPA will result, but increased recruiting costs -- due to recruiter time being lost reviewing resumes and communicating with unqualified applicants will occur.

Cost Per HireThis is a key recruiting metric that shows the true cost per hire from any recruiting source. This could include job boards, search engines, employee referrals, and/or headhunters.

RSS FeedsThis stands for Really Simple Syndication. This technology allows your jobs and/or career site to be packaged in ways that other sites can quickly and easily pick up your job content and plug it into things like blogs, personal home pages, social network profiles, etc.

Talent Landing PagesThese are landing pages online that typically focus on a specific location or job profile, and are designed for SEO or SEM purposes. They contain compan- branded content, candidate subscription capabilities, and active matching jobs for the specific profile presented.

Job Aggregation Sites (Indeed.com, SimplyHired.com, JuJu.com)These are sites that gather job content from all over the web, and offer candidates a single search engine that shows them job content from an aggregation of sites, but most typically just the major job boards. Employers can also get their job content listed directly with in these sites if they have a compatible XML feed that the job aggregator can use.

Job Classified Sites (Google Base, Craigslist, Oodle, Kajiji)These are sites that allow employers to post their jobs online. Typically, they offer free postings, or they have an alternative payment model such as a pay-per-click model, where employers pay pennies per click to receive traffic from their postings, versus expensive single-posting fees.

SEO

SEM

PPC

ATS

CPA

CPH

RSS

Talent Landing Pages

Job Aggregator

Job Classifieds

Glossary of terms (buzzwords)


QUESTIONS: CONSIDERATIONS:

• While many SEO providers can help you get your site online in just a few days or weeks, it can take typically 3-6 months before you get consistent rankings online.

• For SEO vendors that also provide job distribution to the job aggregators and job classified sites, you could begin to receive candidate and applicant traffic on the first day going live -- as your job feeds are delivered instantly to highly trafficked sites online that will drive you traffic directly to your career site.

• None! Typically, a good SEO provider will automatically extract your jobs from your ATS system (or career site), and then the process of job marketing will happen immediately.

• Your jobs will show up online in the search engines, in the job aggregators,and get email or RSS marketed to the candidate community online.

• Candidates will find and view your jobs online and then apply directly back through your ATS system, where your recruiters should already be trained to review and work with applicants for any jobs.

• Typically not. Because search engine users are so specific in their searches , they qualify them-selves based on how they are searching online.

• Because users have to go through an entire apply process using your ATS system, only the most interested people will actually apply online, versus on job boards, where any candidate can “ma-chine gun apply” for dozens of jobs with a single mouse click.

• If you do start to see a high volume of undesirable applicants, your SEO provider should be able to work with you to filter out those jobs online (or de-emphasize them) and/or turn off any online channels that are driving undesirable applicants to you.

• If you don’t have an ATS (or have a homegrown system), most good SEO providers can configure the apply process to whatever reply action you need, even if it’s just asking a candidate to email their resume to you.

• While many ATS systems are burdensome to applicants, they are the only channel most companies have to capture applicants. However, getting the right candidates to your apply screen is the big key.

• Unfortunately, even how to search/find your jobs on the ATS system can be a challenge for candidates, which is why SEO is so great for your jobs. By doing SEO, you are basically swapping out your ATS job search engine for Google -- the easiest search engine on the planet -- so that candidates can find your jobs easier online, and get into the apply process faster.

• Typically, the SEO provider will host your SEO “micro site.” This is required in order for them to do the things necessary to optimize your site for search online.

• Because they use existing (and approved) graphics, logos, content, and colors from your existing site, there are typically no issues with marketing either.

• Most of the information on your SEO site is publicly available job content, therefore there is no secret or confidential data hosted on these SEO sites.

• Also, because there isn’t any true integration that needs to be performed, the IT department is very happy to approve the launch and/or hosting of the SEO site by your vendor.

How much time does it take to get an SEO strategy online?

How much extra work do my recruiters have to do in order to get SEO to work?

Will I receive an avalanche of un-qualified applicants to my jobs?

What if I don’t have an ATS system, or my ATS system is horrible?

Who hosts this site and will my IT department freak out?

Frequently asked questions


QUESTIONS: CONSIDERATIONS:

• Yes! Because all applicants are driven back to your ATS system to apply for jobs, your current OFCCP/EEO policies and process are used to comply with these rules.

• Typically, SEO providers can work with any ATS system on the market, as most of them have ways to scrape job content out, and to receive applicants with a direct apply URL into their system.

• Different vendors have better/worst capabilities for capturing key data points such as applicant source, so you can check with your ATS vendor to see what capabilities they have -- or your SEO provider typically has a working history with your ATS and can tell you what is possible based on other clients they have worked with.

• You can use Google’s Adwords Keyword Research tool for free to do your own research for job-specific keywords, estimating how many searches there are for your hiring need areas.

• The URL for this service is: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

• Simply type in keywords such as “Engineering Jobs” or “Nursing Jobs,” and you will begin to see how many monthly searches there are on Google.

• In most cases, employers will need to have a minimum of 25 or more open jobs at any given time in order to consider SEO as a recruiting strategy.

• Any larger company with 100 to 1,000 jobs consistently open would highly benefit from having an SEO strategy in place.

• The number of candidates and hires ranges widely, depending on what industry you are in and the types of professionals you are hiring.

• We’ve seen local hospitals that make between 40-50 hires per year, to major national healthcare networks that make thousands of hires per year in this difficult market.

• One of our clients (a major national fitness center) was able to drop their cost per hire from hundreds of dollars per hire, to just $30 to $40 per hire in most of their general hiring areas.

• A major pharmaceutical client tracked the exact number of hires, and the cost-per- hire difference between our SEO solution and their major job boards… They found that, not only did the SEO/SEM strategy produce a similar level of hires (45 in the first 6 months versus 60 from the top job board), but the cost per hire was significantly lower (over $1,000 less per hire), and the applicant-to-hire ratio was 3X less than the job boards , which resulted in less recruiter screening and rejection time spent from the other sources.

Is this process OFCCP/EEO compliant?

What ATS systems will this work with?

How can I find out if my targeted candidates are searching online?

How many jobs do I need to have in order to make this a tworthwhile effort?

How many hires can I expect to make using an SEO/SEM strategy?

Frequently asked questions


KEYWORDS KEYWORDSAVERAGE SEARCHES PER MONTH

AVERAGE SEARCHES PER MONTH

georgia jobssales jobsohio jobsmichigan jobsatlanta jobschicago jobsmarketing jobsmedical jobscolorado jobscustomer service jobshouston jobsadministrative jobsmanagement jobsaccounting jobsdallas jobshuman resources jobsnurse jobsnursing jobsoffice jobswarehouse jobsconstruction jobsexecutive jobsgovernment jobsreceptionist jobsretail jobssan diego jobsclerical jobsengineering jobsentry level jobsfinance jobsmaintenance jobssummer jobscomputer jobsdata entry jobsfinancial jobshealthcare jobshotel jobsinsurance jobslaw jobslegal jobsmanufacturing jobsmedical assistant jobsstudent jobsteacher jobsteaching jobsart jobsattorney jobsbank jobscollege jobsfederal jobs

nj jobspa jobsenvironmental jobshr jobspharmaceutical jobstechnology jobsadvertising jobsautomotive jobsbanking jobscall center jobselectrician jobsparalegal jobspolice jobspublic relations jobssecretary jobstruck driver jobsdental assistant jobshospitality jobsjob applicationsjobs ctmba jobsnon profit jobsphotography jobssports jobstransportation jobscontract jobshealth care jobsinternet jobsphysician jobssocial work jobstrucking jobsuk jobscanada jobshuman resource jobsinformation technology jobsjob fairsnursing jobpharmacist jobssearch jobsaviation jobsconsulting jobsoverseas jobssummer jobtemporary jobsinterior design jobsradiology jobstemp jobsjobs in londonarchitecture jobsbiotech jobs

2,740,000 2,240,000

1,830,000 1,500,000 1,220,000 1,220,000 1,220,000 1,220,000 1,000,000 1,000,000 1,000,000

823,000 823,000 673,000 673,000 673,000 673,000 673,000 673,000 673,000 550,000 550,000 550,000 550,000 550,000 550,000 368,000 368,000 368,000 368,000 368,000 368,000 301,000 301,000 301,000 301,000 301,000 301,000 301,000 301,000 301,000 301,000 301,000 301,000 301,000 246,000 246,000 246,000 246,000 246,000

246,000 246,000 201,000 201,000 201,000 201,000 165,000 165,000 165,000 165,000 165,000 165,000 165,000 165,000 165,000 165,000 135,000 135,000 135,000 135,000 135,000 135,000 135,000 135,000 135,000 110,000 110,000 110,000 110,000 110,000 110,000 110,000 90,500 90,500 90,500 90,500 90,500 90,500 90,500 74,000 74,000 74,000 74,000 74,000 60,500 60,500 60,500 49,500 40,500 40,500

Keyword searches


Data Source: This data was compiled from Google’s Keyword Research Tool online: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

10729 Bren Road East, Minnetonka, MN 55343 tel: 952.697.2900 web: www.jobs2web.com

Or email us at [email protected]

Make the Smart SEO Move: Talk to Jobs2WebLet’s Get Started! We love to hear from new clients and partners so we can begin the process of learning your situation and goals, and help you see what the possibilities are.

Our career site experts will start by analyzing your career site and recruiting strategy, and provide you with a consultative approach towards how you can optimize your interactive recruiting strategy.

Through the process, we guarantee that not only will you learn a lot, but we’ll equip you with the information you need to educate your team (and boss) so that you can begin upgrading your recruiting strategy.

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