We’ve already written about how for the most part SEO for Talent Acquisition is basically just a huge waste of time.  However, there are two major Search queries that HR should be aware of, and try to build content around in order to control their online employer brand (it’s easier than you may think).

The two most common search queries are: “{{Company}} Careers” and “Working at {{Company}}” – the first is from Job seekers looking to find jobs at a given company, the second for people looking to learn about working at the company.

30% of all Google Searches are about jobs, and Google has responded to this trend by creating their jobs product.  Unfortunately this is taking up valuable real estate on the search terms, especially those in the “{{Company}} Careers” genre:

Beyond Google, companies have to compete with Glassdoor, Indeed, Monster, LinkedIn and many others for valuable search result real estate.

For “Working at {{Company}}” there are review sites who are going to compete with you and try to direct traffic towards their ratings of your company.  The usual suspects are here including Indeed, Glassdoor, etc.

It’s important to Rank for these searches so that you don’t lose job seekers to competitors when they enter sites like Glassdoor or Google Jobs (who’re trying to monetize this traffic by selling it to other companies).  Also, by controlling more search real estate, you can better control your employer branding messaging.

Here are how you can rank for these queries:

• Create a Quora posting about what it’s like to work at your company and have employees answer the questions (search “working at IBM” to see an example)
• Write posts on Medium, LinkedIn, etc about what it’s like to work at your company
• Have a slick UI/UX for your jobs page so that it’s easy to navigate, this will greatly increase it’s ability to rank
• Generate PR around working at your company on reputable websites
• Build microsites that target these keywords on your own careers site (make sure the title tag and content match the intent of the search query in order to have the greatest impact).

Here’s more on these queries and how to control them:

What are you doing to enhance your SEO strategy?  Let us know if the comments.

The post Two SEO Terms HR Has to Rank For (And How to Do It For Free) appeared first on NextWave Hire Blog.