LinkedIn has become a primary place to target high quality professionals in a wide range of industries. Furthermore, you might feel that your LinkedIn Jobs post can’t compete against bigger brands. Large companies have more resources to invest in paid advertising when looking for a new hire.
But there’s still room for your small business to use LinkedIn advertising services to find the right person for your job opening. If you’re familiar with marketing campaigns to sell your own products or services, the same strategies can also be applied to LinkedIn Jobs. Similarly, you can use search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to get your job post noticed by the right people.
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What is SEO?
If you’re not familiar with the topic of SEO, here is a very brief introduction. According to SearchEngineLand,
In simple terms, it means the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in Google, Bing, and other search engines. The better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you are to garner attention and attract prospective and existing customers to your business.
Normally, we think of using SEO for our company’s marketing campaigns. Since we want our products to be searchable on Google, we market them in a way to be found by the right customers. You can use these same SEO techniques in your job openings. Essentially, you are running a marketing campaign to fill the job opening.
What SEO Techniques Work for Linkedin Job Postings?
Search engines use algorithms to sort through websites and pages to provide the best and most relevant content on the search engine results pages (SERPs). So, you need to give the search engine clues to help identify your job posting for Google.
1. Make It Short
Don’t write a novel in your post. Make it concise, but filled with information. A limit of 150 words is ideal for search engines. In other words, pack those 150 words with information on job responsibilities, requirements, and benefits. Pare your job description down and use bullet points to get your most relevant job information in the listing. Use the headline to list the job title and location. That will make it easy for searchers to find when looking for jobs “near me.”
2. Make It Easily Shared
Make sure your listing can be easily shared on social media and through email. The more it is shared, the higher it will rank in SERPs. The shares need to be legitimate though. Don’t try to game the system. Find multiple ways to share job posts. Add a link to your employees’ signatures for job openings. Alternatively, you can share on Twitter or Facebook or post job openings on your website. Using LinkedIn advertising best practices for your next talent search can increase visibility.
3. Include Structured Data
In your job post, include as much data as possible, such as salary, benefits, location, position title, along with clear title tags and meta description. These details will be picked up by search engines with a clickable link (usually your title tag) to your post.
The meta description should be under 160 words, and your 150-word job description will fit perfectly. It’s best not to use the entire 160-word limit because not all search engines have enough space, especially on mobile devices.
4. Optimize Metadata
Optimize your job description by using keywords. You should research keywords that are relevant, including regionalisms that you may not use, but other people do. Since you want to cast the widest net to find the best candidates, use language as a tool to find them.
Since you only need 150 words plus your title for the job posting, it might sound like an easy task to write. However, maximizing your SEO in such a small space can be difficult. Working with an SEO expert can expedite the process and result in success more quickly.
5. Optimize for Mobile
Most importantly, people access the internet primarily on their mobile device. In addition to your website having responsive web design, you’ll need to optimize content for mobile layouts as well. There’s a good chance that most job seekers are actively searching on a mobile phone or tablet. This means that they might not see your entire 150 words in their search results. Therefore, put the most crucial details of the job opening at the beginning of the job description. Mobile search is not exactly the same as what you see on your desktop. Even if you use the same search engine, you may not get the same results.
SEMRush ran a recent study on the differences between Google’s mobile and desktop search and they found that:
The choice of device didn’t seem to matter for Top Stories, Local Pack and People Also Ask features, but desktop users were twice as likely to get a Google Ad and a Featured Snippet, whilst mobile users saw 12.5X more images and 3X more videos in organic search.
And that brings us to images and videos.
6. Incorporate Videos
Images and videos get prime real estate on mobile devices. People love to watch videos on their mobile devices. Because they do, search engines display more videos in mobile search than on desktop. Adding a video to your job listing will get it listed twice because Google will find your text job listing, and they will also find your video job listing (either on your website, or YouTube or another hosting site). You can use SEO techniques when you upload your video, and you can edit the details later if you need to. You can also put a link to the video in the job description, and vice versa.
LinkedIn has found that “people are 7-10 times more likely to view a video than to read an article or profile.” At the very least, a video is more personal than just reading text. LinkedIn offers some suggestions on video job listings to get you started.
Improving Your Visibility on LinkedIn Jobs
If you aren’t getting the results you want on LinkedIn Jobs, then you can improve your job listing with SEO to get noticed. You don’t have to beat major corporations using LinkedIn advertising services. You just need to let the search engines know exactly who you’re looking to hire. By using SEO techniques, you will have a much better chance of finding the right person for your open job. To learn more about how to use SEO in your job listing, contact us.