Online Talent Acquisition
Well...its been a while since I've threaded. I've rec'd quite a few emails for the last several months about Online Talent Acquisition. One particular topic that continues to recur is HR SEO. Here are a few FAQs that I will attempt to answer:
How does HR SEO work?
HR SEO is the practice of taking popular search engine optimization techniques and applying them towards sourcing qualied talent online. The goal of HR SEO is to reduce your cost per hire by effectively reaching a targeted group of candidates through a well contructed and search friendly webpage.
How can my job postings or career site become search friendly?
First, we take a look at your meta data and see if you are doing anything wrong. Yes, there is in fact a standard for meta tags and they must be followed very closely in order for your job postings or career site to index properly on tier 1 search engines. Second, we look at your image tags (called alt tags) to see if all your images are labeled properly and if your page title and page content match. Then, we analyze your link density. Do you too many links on your page? If you, Google may be looking at your site as having too many links but not enough content. There needs to be a certain level of content embedded with the links in order to achieve the appropriate link density.
Next, we look at link reprocity. Which sites are linking back to yours? How many are there? Do they drive relevant traffic to your job postings or career pages? Which leads me to the next item....link relevancy. Does your site link with sites that are revelant to your content? If not, you are essentially creating a poor link relationship and mind as well just link with $pam sites. How well is your page defined textually? Meaning, to what degree do you describe your career opportunities, employee value proposition, benefits and culture clearly and with a high level of keyword density? How high (position-wise) is the description of your page listed? Yep, you got it. Google likes page definition as close to the top as possible. Keywords buried at the bottom of the page literally get lost. The higher those keywords...the better. Does your content makes sense? In order words, don't create a page filled with a ridiculous bombardment of keywords but nothing more. Nobody is going to click or link to your page if its just a word pit of random keywords but doesn't say anything really meaningful. Job seekers are using search engines to find you...don't waste your chance to sell your company by creating a nonsense page filled with relevant keywords that is total bull.
Furthermore, keyword PHRASES matter. So if the content doesn't have strong phrases that will mirror an actual search, your page won't get found by relevant traffic. Next, there's the IP address. Don't link all of your job postings and career pages from one webserver (i.e. IP address). Yes, Google looks at IP Addresses of the referrer so if the referral server is always the same...that will not help your quality link ratings. Last, the age of your page counts. The older the better. So if you create a career page and it doesn't rank high initially despite doing this the right way...your site may be new and may be still sitting in the Google Sandbox.
Have you really consulted with clients and helped their Talent Sourcing / Online Talent Acquisition practices through HR SEO?
Absolutely. If I gave you a list of my clients, you'd be shocked. These big and small companies alike realize that HR SEO is not an instant gratification practice. They have shown patience and invested the appropriate time and money to really build appropriate content, links, and well-written job descriptions. HR Interactive Marketing is a new and emerging niche of the online marketing industry. Progressive HR organizations see the value in sourcing talent through search. I don't recommend any HR SEO project for less than 6 months. You'd really be wasting your time and mine with anything less. The commitment to fine tuning your search friendly career site and job postings must be long and financially significant to really help reduce your cost per hire. Especially if that's your ultimate goal.
Well thats just the tip of the iceberg...i can't give everything away. Thats just a little taste of what we do.
For more information, please feel free to contact Rob at 646-320-5162 or email rob (at) hronlinemarketing.com
