Creating regular content is a vital part of staying relevant and in-touch with your target market, as well as helping you to attract the best positive kind of attention from Google and other search engines, making your website more susceptible to favourable search results.
For SEO, ensuring that your recruitment website is able to provide consistent, knowledgeable and unique content is vital to staying competitive. Google is aware of the fact that recruitment websites are different and treats them as such, recognising that a high percentage of the website will contain job postings, so making sure that the rest of your website is of a high enough standard for Google and other search engines to take notice is worth spending time on.
Your content format
It’s important to produce articles, blogs, how-to examples as well as a number of other content pieces to keep your site regularly updated, as it shows that you’re a leader in your field. Your website gives you a ready-made platform to show off your knowledge and to give you every chance with SEO.
But what should you write about? This of course, is different for every website. As mentioned earlier, the usual format for good content is to produce well written and thought-out articles (long-form pieces of writing), blogs (short-form), listicals (a list of items) or how-tos (offering advice on a particular subject). The latter two are often easy to draw up once you’ve thought of a particular topic and angle, while blogs and articles will require more in-depth research and a particular knack for writing to a half-decent standard.
Coming up with content ideas
The hardest part of putting together a content plan is to decide what you’re actually going to write about.
You’ll need to come up with a generalised topic first, before narrowing it down to look at the topic from a specific angle. A good example would be something like:
Topic: Hollywood films are starring more UK actors and actresses than they used to
Angle: Has the increase in the number of British acting schools helped the UK to produce more film stars?
Or, to use a more recruitment focused example:
Topic: Accountants are finding the job market more competitive in the banking industry
Angle: Five industries that are desperately looking for accountants outside the banking sector
Both examples start with a broad approach, but then take that topic and discuss a particular aspect or viewpoint of them. But how should you come up with the topic to start with? One way of doing this might be all around you at work.
Taking stock of the conversations happening in and around your workplace can often lead to an important topic being uncovered.
What are people discussing during the work day? When Rachel from admin isn’t talking about her holiday on your lunch break, are there any hot-button issues at work that your colleagues are talking about in depth? These conversations are likely to be repeated around similar work environments to your very own. So if co-workers are discussing about a lack of people applying for roles within a certain industry, try and work out why that is? What’s happening? What might encourage people to apply for the role?
Make sure not to overlook social media for topic ideas as well. It doesn’t take a minute to see what’s trending on either Twitter or Facebook. Think of it as a broader way to interact with people like you would do in your own office. Take stock of the conversations happening and the hot topics that are garnering attention. Even if it initially appears completely unrelated to your own industry or environment, is there a way that you could link to it?
For example, if a popular TV show is coming to a climax with a murder mystery about to be solved in the final episode, could you somehow relate that to any scientific or investigative type jobs that you’re recruiting for? While this example might appear a little extreme on the surface, you’ll often find links between most things if you look hard enough.
Most importantly, make sure that any piece you write appeals first and foremost to the audience you’re trying to attract. Don’t write about the top ten mystery novels if it has nothing to do with your own particular industry, as you won’t get any traction from that. Find your websites own niche, whether it be attracting culinary applicants or marine biologists and link trends and hot-button topics to that to get the most out of your topic and angle ideas.
Dos and Don’ts
One thing you mustn’t do though is repeat content. While copy and pasting bits of content from one page to another may seem like an easy way to beef-up your content volume. Google and other search engines will see any repeated content as an immediate red flag and negatively impact your search ranking. If you have two similar pages or content ideas across your site, make sure you re-word them differently to each other.
Keeping your recruitment website – or any website for that matter – regular, up-to-date and full of knowledgeable information is crucial to working your way up the search rankings. Producing this content will go a long way to also establishing your website and brand as a leader in your field, providing information and expertise that will go a long way to people immediately thinking of your brand in a positive light in your specific industry.
• Keep your website regularly updated with content
• Pick a topic, then find an angle
• Provide helpful advice
• Keep your target audience in mind at all times
• Don’t repeat written content elsewhere
More Information
Of course though, it isn’t an easy road to create consistently great content and as we’ve previously discussed, SEO is a much more difficult concept to fully grasp. For help and ideas with all of this, make sure you get in touch with Strategies.
