In a job market where there are many candidates, a recruiting company must ensure that their online marketing is directed at customers. With the job market changing and most companies starting to use services like LinkedIn, there has never been a more important time to make sure you maximize the leads generated through your website. First, there are three things you need to do with your website to make sure it’s going to convert, before you start looking at SEO or online marketing:

1. Make sure you have a page just for client businesses that shows how you’re different. Talking about experience is a good thing, but it can also help to talk about some of the processes you go through to find the right candidate.
2. Make sure you have testimonials and links to client websites that are already there. Some companies worry about competitors stealing their customers, but you really should expect your competitors to be looking to do this anyway, having a few customer links isn’t going to change that fact.
3. Focus on a niche or geographic area. In our experience, websites that focus on one or two core areas convert at a much higher rate than just “Sydney Recruitment Agency.” This will also give you the keywords you can use to target your SEO.

When you start looking for SEO, you need to know the difference between the keywords that clients will use and the keywords that candidates will use. Candidates search for “IT Jobs Sydney”, where clients will use words like “North Sydney Technology Recruitment Agency”. Using a mix of long and short keywords will give you both, but be sure to focus your content on words customers will use.

1. The first step in Recruitment SEO is to get your website in order. Your client’s landing page should use your target keywords in the title and body of the page. When using it in the body of the page, you should consider wrapping keywords in H1 and bold tags.
2. Be sure to encourage people to share your work on Twitter and Facebook. Most modern websites have some sort of plugin that can make this happen.
3. If you’re using a job board, make sure jobs posted there can be indexed and included in your sitemap. The best way to verify this is to copy a section of the job description and paste it into Google. If your work shows up, then they are being indexed.
4. If you have a job board, there is a chance that you can syndicate your jobs on websites like Indeed.com, Jobsgator.com, etc. They usually only take the first paragraph of a paper, before linking to your website.
5. Every modern website should have a blog. You should use this tool to write about changes in the landscape of your industry. This will show that you know your market, but it will also give you the opportunity to target longer-tail keywords and generate internal links to your customers’ page. The best content for your blog is if you can report on general job market changes in your industry, or if there have been significant changes in the number of clients/candidates you have.
6. Link partners. Use a service link linkmarket.net and find other recruiting companies to exchange links with. Link exchange is the first step in generating links to your site. As long as you do it with other recruiting companies around the world, there is nothing wrong with that.
7. Guest blog. A few years ago, article websites were the best way to generate a volume of links to your site. Now guest blogging is better. Article submissions are declining because Google has started to remove the value of links from sites with a lot of duplicate content. There are a few ways to get guest blogging gigs. The best way is to look for recruitment media that have a blog. Most blogs will be happy to receive comments and content from someone who has experience in the industry. When you guest blog, it gives you the opportunity to get your name out there and have a profile page on another website that can link to yours.
8. Find recruiting directories. There are some directories that are worth listing and some that are not. The best way to tell the difference is to search for recruitment agencies in your area. If a directory shows up, then it’s probably worth looking at. You are looking for ones that will allow you to have a logo and a link to your website. Some industry associations have a directory, which is usually worth looking into.
9. Sponsor local events. Find and host local events worth talking about. Sponsor of a local office soccer team. This will get people talking and generate links to your website. It will advertise your business to your target market and build buzz, which is an important part of SEO.