Category:

Search Engine Optimization

WordPress Blog & Job Board Software Integration

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

How do you make the best use of a blog for both job board SEO and vacancy advertising? Here are the key considerations for your job board software.

Look & feel
Based on your blog concept / goals: either customize your blog html/design to fully reflect your job board style and add to visitor “job board experience” or keep it simple by utilizing free WordPress template (“blog” style) & layout.

Standalone domain vs folder or alias on a job board?
Do you publish a blog on standalone domain? Or would you add it to main job board? Please consider the following:

Folder (i.e. www.your_board_software.com/blog) – our recommendation
- for it will help your SEO by organically adding to your overall job board content “weight”. The folder content will be indexed by Google and considered part of your main job site.
Alias (i.e. http://blog.your_board_software.com)
- alias / blog SEO will benefit from already established main job board ranking. But it will not add up to main board SEO.
Standalone domain (i.e. www.your_blog_domain.com)
- will help if your external job board linking suffers (i.e. link it to your job board from a well-page-ranked blog homepage).
- does not add any content “weight” to your main board.
- for certain businesses might have greater credibility / traffic / more subscribers if not linked to main “biased” job board brand (means more blog page / job views).

Free software for your blog
WordPress is our preference for it integrates seamlessly with JobMount software and provides variety of nice SEO features:
- SEO friendly links
- 301-redirect (for transferring existing pagerank to new URL)
- sitemap generation
- robots.txt management
etc.

Add dynamic content to Job Board pages via software RSS feature:

1. SEO: help your job board homepage and key landing pages obtain frequent updates by relevant content supplied via blog RSS.
2. Visitors conversion: increase your candidate retention by providing useful content to review/subscribe to.

Type of blog content usually available via RSS: latest posts, popular posts, latest comments, posts per category, etc.
Use JobMount software RSS reader feature to download the content and publish to job board automatically.

Advertise jobs on blog pages via RSS
Add job listings / adverts to your blog posts for both job seeker applications and SEO/ linking.

Tags:advise, blog, integration
Posted in Admin Features, New features, Search Engine Optimization, Software features | No Comments »

Job Board Traffic Sources Checklist

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Job site marketer’s checklist of job seeker traffic generators and JobMount tips for improving on those for job board software clients:

1. Search engines: organic (via SEO)
Key source of free job seeker traffic delivering high application rates.

Concentrate on optimizing for Google (75% traffic) and peers will follow (Yahoo / Bing, AOL, etc)
Optimize for both popular and long tail keywords (long tail keywords might generate up to 90% traffic)
Add more jobs from employer websites via job wrapping & aggregator
Increase conversion by providing branded landing pages
Estimate potential traffic your job board can achieve via SEO

2. Search Engines: Pay Per Click
Advertise job board or specific openings on Google, Yahoo, etc.

Hitwise data reveals that only 9 percent of Googlers are clicking on sponsored listings when searching jobs
Can improve your key clients’ jobs performance by advertising on Google

3. Aggregators
Massive paid traffic generators: Indeed, Simplyhired. Syndicate on free boards to increase coverage: GoogleBase, Oodle, Juju, Trovit.

High bounce rates for job boards (60-85%)
Concentrate budget on priority postings / clients
Use client branded jobs landing pages to improve application / reduce bounce rate

4. Social networks
Advertise both job board brand and specific jobs on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.

Integrate by providing single sign on (i.e. Facebook Connect authentication) – improves new visitors registration rates
Advertise your board on registered applicant wall / status updates
Create a group for your job seekers to join and post profiles to
Auto-post to Twitter / Facebook accounts: carefully differentiate job channels to make them worth following (don’t spam all of the openings into single account)
Create your own community (Ning, WordPress / BuddyPress) & integrate with job board

5. Social bookmarking
Key content bookmarks submitted to Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.ici.os, Squidoo can help both traffic and SEO.

6. Mobile devices
Offer mobile application to download or improve user experience by opening mobile version of your website on iPhone and other mobile devices.

7. Subscriptions & direct marketing
Generate returning traffic via job alerts (email, RSS, Twitter, sms) and newsletters. Mass mailers.

8. Online adverts, PR
Paid links, banners, press releases, virus / creative, newsletter sponsorships for both job seeker traffic / brand awareness and recruiter leads generation. Relevant links help both traffic and SEO, but make sure your banner ad or link is placed on a page well ranked on Google for your target keywords (or part of your keywords)

9. Offline
TV, industry magazines, boards, job fairs, etc. Can generate both direct traffic and improve brand awareness. Google organic search click-though-ratio increases for brands advertised offline.

10. Sticky content
Create a blog, social network, publish a newsletter or white papers with useful content. Helps your SEO for relevant content and external links.

11. Partners
I.e. publish Jobg8 network jobs on your website to obtain Pay For Performance revenues and / or have your clients advertise jobs on other network websites.

See also:
- Key sources of hires and niche job boards challenges
- Job aggregator software
- Google personalized search influence on job boards

Tags:advise
Posted in Job Board Business, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »

Google Personalized Search: Job Boards

Monday, March 8th, 2010

What are the challenges brought by major Google results change? SEO gets more personalized and emphasis shifts towards wider content coverage.
How would search results change for job board?
Both popular (i.e. medical jobs) and long tail (i.e. accountant jobs Houston ACCA) searches will shift towards websites matching other job seeker “properties” (i.e. location, functions, skills, job title, companies, etc.).
Personalization log example:
someone is actively searching for content & visiting websites related to pediatricians, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins
Search influence expected:
generic job search query like medical jobs or pediatrician jobs would bring career sites relevant to:
- search query supplied
- geared towards websites containing pediatricians, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins content.
Content expansion and keyword optimization required
Job boards are to increase coverage for search terms relevant to job seekers interests (logged by Google):
- add relevant content (via blogs, communities / social networks, news, etc.)
- optimize jobs and landing pages for detailed search terms (Long Tail SEO) & make sure they are indexed.
Software for personalized SEO
Here are some of the features required to facilitate personalized content optimization:
- automated landing pages & templates, keywords prioritization, intelligent job indexing
- external RSS reader (get industry news content)
- job spider (more jobs & regularly updated jobs content)
- blogs & social networks integration

See also:
- Estimate potential job board SEO traffic.

Tags:advise, google
Posted in Job Board Business, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »

Job Board Software Blog

Search Engine Optimization

WordPress Blog & Job Board Software Integration

Job Board Traffic Sources Checklist

Google Personalized Search: Job Boards

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