10 Tips for Boosting Your Local SEO Recruitment Campaign

If you’re a recruiter operating on a regional level, it makes sense to focus more on local SEO. This means prioritising and improving your visibility in local search engine result pages or SERPs. Similar to when you’re optimising your site for national searches, you’ll need to attract clients and make candidates aware of your job offers. However, your SEO efforts should be directed at a smaller audience.

If you’re not convinced, consider this 2017 study that around 35% of all search traffic is local. You could be losing business by ignoring potential clients near you. So better start optimising your local SEO now. 

1. Creating or updating your GMB account

Google My Business (GMB)  is free and an excellent way of advertising your business location with Google. Having a GMB listing also means that your company appears on Google Maps or any related directories. Furthermore, once the search engine verified your recruitment agency as legitimate, it could appear in any relevant searches.

To enhance your GMB, make sure to:

• Confirm the listing
• write accurate and up-to-date details.
• Incorporate all the useful information about your business, such as office hours, type of recruitment service and job offers, logos and high-quality images.
• Write a sincere response to the reviews.
• Consider using Google Posts for writing content on your GMB account.

2. Obtaining favourable reviews from satisfied clients and candidates

The positive reviews you receive will undoubtedly enhance your GMB presence. Most importantly, such feedback also encourages more clients and candidates to avail of your services. A 2017 consumer review found out that around 85% of online users consider the reviews equivalent to recommendations.

Here are some ways on how you can encourage a client or candidate to write a review:

• You can ask clients or candidates in person to leave a review once the hiring process has been successfully concluded.
• You can send an email later asking for a review, but only after ensuring that you’re reaching out to a client or candidate satisfied with your service.
• Make sure that you respond to reviews favourable and in a professional manner.  Thank them and address any complaints.

3. Getting ready for voice search

With more people using voice search, Consider adding such a feature in your local SEO.  Make it easy for your target audience to ask questions through speech rather than typing in their queries.

When searchers use voice search, they often use long-tail keywords more. Therefore, consider adjusting your content so it will feature a more conversational tone. For instance, you can write your content in a way that it can easily deal with the following typical questions starters:

• Who
• What
• Where
• When
• Why
• How

When optimising for voice search, you’ll also need to take into account the user’s intent. Most voice searches are done to find specific pieces of information. For instance, if a candidate is looking for a job near their location, they will expect a quick and helpful reply. So if a potential client uses voice search and asks for your office location, the website should provide a ready answer.  

4. Generating content from local news and events 

Writing content regarding local issues are effective SEO tactics for grabbing the attention of potential clients or candidates. As such, consider incorporating specific types of content such as:

• Blog posts covering local news or events
• Videos about the charities or causes that your agency supports

5. Optimising your site for mobile

Studies have shown that visits from mobile devices are increasing while those from desktops are decreasing steadily.  A 2017 survey also showed that three out of four mobile searches with local intent produced a positive result within 24 hours.

To have a mobile-friendly website:

• Make sure that it doesn’t take more than three seconds for your site to load. Use fonts that are big enough and easy to read.
• Convey only the essential information and use images only when necessary provide excellent user-experience (UX)  by designing an intuitive user interface (UI).

6. Focusing on local keywords

It makes sense to focus on keywords that local clients and candidates find relevant. You can use tools, such as Google Keyword Planner, to see the words and phrases used commonly in a particular location. Once you identify the relevant local keywords, make sure that they are incorporated in your site’s content, including:

• URL
• Meta content
• Copy

7. Using location-specific pages

If you have more than one office or place of operation, you’ll need a separate location page. for each of them. Include the following details in your location pages:

• Office hours
• Business name, address, and contact number
• Individual description
• Reviews or Testimonials
• Google map for each office

If you have only one office, create an ‘About Us’ page that provides key details about your business. . For instance, you can mention that your recruitment office is near a local university or is located in the centre of a business district. 

8. Gaining visibility from online directories

Online business directories can help your recruitment firm gain local visibility. Consider listing your business name, address, and contact numbers in local listings, such as Foursquare, YellowPages or any directories widely used in your area. Also, make sure to include a backlink to your website and a thorough description of your recruitment service.

9. Concentrating on quality backlinks rather than quantity

When building links, it’s better to focus on quality since it can boost your local SEO effort. To obtain the best backlinks, consider:

• Writing high-quality content that can convince other sites to link to it
• Send guest blogs on sites that enjoy a high reputation and domain authority
• Engage local influencers on social media and encourage them to link back

10. Creating dedicated web pages for each job offers 

It can be tempting to lump all your available job offers in a single page. However, such a tactic may weaken your local SEO effort. Google may assign a lower rank to your site because it seems that you’re not an authority in any particular area. If you only have a specific niche but have multiple regions, you can use location-based content for each page.  For example, ‘bookkeeper’ can become ‘London bookkeeper’ or ‘Birmingham bookkeeper.’   

Take away

Local SEO is evolving quickly. Search engines, such as Google, can announce new features that can affect the local SERPS. It’s only a matter of time so better be prepared for the coming changes. By taking advantage of the local SEO strategies discussed above, you can boost your website’s local search ranking. Also, it helps prepare your recruitment business for any upcoming changes to Google’s search algorithms.

If you require some guidance on what kind of SEO action to take, consider reaching out to us here at Recruitment Traffic. We can help your recruitment website obtain excellent local search rankings.