Not long ago, HR Dive anointed Google for Jobs the technology of the year. For many, this didn’t come as a surprise – it makes sense that job seekers would start their searches from the place where they search for…everything else (Google is visited almost 100 billion times per month). Because job seekers are so comfortable with the platform, leading talent acquisition teams have taken notice and are vying to get their job posts to the top of Google’s rankings.
Yet while Google for Jobs is simple in concept, making sure job posts are actually found by relevant, qualified applicants, is a different thing altogether. That’s why we’ve compiled some actionable tips to help you optimize your Google for Jobs listings…and we’ve had some fun with it. So, without further adieu, here are 23 Google for Jobs tips for 2023!
23 Tips to Optimize Your Job Posts on Google
- Post it on your own site. Even if you list your jobs on job boards, make sure you’re also posting them on your company website. The Google for Jobs algorithm prioritizes corporate websites over job boards, introducing an opportunity to bring candidates directly to you. This generally translates to a better candidate experience and, subsequently, a higher applicant conversion rate.
- Make your listings “crawlable.” You’ll want to triple-check that the jobs listed on your website can be crawled by the Googlebot. Check your robot.txt file and confirm that your career pages are indexed and available.
- Stay fresh. Create new pages for each individual job listing. Not only is this a Google best practice, but it’s another way you can ensure that you’re providing qualified candidates with the most relevant job search experience.
- Follow the rules. Use Google’s structured data guidelines for job postings. This ensures that Google for Jobs can correctly read your job posts. If it can’t, your jobs won’t be visible, indexed, or ranked.
- Use smart URLs. Read up on Google’s recommendations for canonical URLs, and make sure that you add each job posting URL to your website’s sitemap daily.
- Include a publish date. Be sure to include the date that your jobs are posted, as well as their expiration dates. Tagging these timelines correctly ensures that you provide candidates with the best timeframe to apply.
- …and remove expired jobs. Job seekers put a lot of time and effort into finding and applying for jobs. If they’re delivered expired listings after they’ve taken the time to read your posts, they’re going to be (understandably) discouraged. Your site authority will also suffer when job seekers lose confidence in its relevance. If doing the right thing isn’t enough motivation, it’s worth noting that expired job posts will make Google bring down the hammer on your pages.
- Test your structured data. After you create your job listings, test and preview them with Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to make sure you’ve done everything correctly.
- Keep your content concise. Blocky text and lengthy paragraphs are the perfect recipe to put potential applicants to sleep. They’ll also decrease the likelihood that your job posts will rank highly on Google. Do your best to make the content of your job descriptions readable by using things like headers and bullet points. You’ll be doing everyone a favor.
- Don’t make up words. Internally, it’s understandable if you throw around wacky, unique names and terminology for your jobs. But when it comes to Google for Jobs, you run the risk of the algorithm interpreting them incorrectly. Make sure your job titles, and descriptions, are clear, descriptive, and simple for any person (or algorithm) to understand.
- Avoid special characters. Google for Jobs’ ranking algorithm frowns upon excessive exclamations, capitalizations, and other special characters. It’s designed to care about substance, not flash. A meaningful, helpful job post is a lot better than clickbait (for you, and for job seekers).
- Stay relevant. Including the right keywords and descriptors in your job posts is a must. They should tap into the hard skills, soft skills, and other requirements that most determine success in a given job. Put yourself in the candidates’ shoes…what sorts of things would you be searching for? What types of results would you want, or expect, to see for a given query?
- Keep your job titles specific and succinct. Job titles are one of the most important ranking signals when it comes to Google for Jobs. It therefore shouldn’t come as a surprise that many employers try to catch peoples’ attention with flashy titles that are really job descriptions masquerading as job titles. The best thing you can do to create a title that ranks well is to keep it concise (35-50 characters in length) and avoid using any language that’s vague, misleading, or attempting to be a description.
- While you’re thinking about titles…use ones that people are searching for. Especially nowadays, there are many different titles that can refer to the same position. Play around with different titles that you think will work. If you don’t know how to research the titles, keywords, and trends that people are most looking for, look to leverage AI-based tools that do the work for you.
- Add (a specific) location. Location is another important signal that Google looks for, as the algorithm prioritizes results that are nearby to where a job seeker is searching. Clearly tag where your jobs are located, getting as specific as possible (right down to the street address if you can). Google’s location-based services need this information in order to show candidates their commute times, which will improve your results. Offering remote work? Don’t fret. You can also tag your posts as being remote/telecommute-friendly.
- Feature your brand. Here’s a branding opportunity that you won’t want to miss! The best job posts on Google for Jobs do a great job of featuring the employer’s brand. Upload a high-quality logo and tag your company name to help your listing stand out from similar ones.
- Think about job filters. Google for Jobs allows job seekers to filter their job searches on the criteria that are most important to them (think job type, industry, benefits, etc.) and save alerts for those searches. Keep all these options in mind when you’re crafting your posts to make sure that, regardless of the filter, your jobs show up for the right candidates.
- Get real about salary. While many recruiters don’t like to post salary information, including and tagging the salary range for each open role will give you an advantage when it comes to Google rankings and reaching qualified candidates. And that’s not to mention the other intangible benefits (like improved candidate perception and saved time in the interview process)!
- Streamline with numbers. Google for Jobs allows you to include a Job ID number, which is a unique number that your organization uses internally to track positions and applications. Streamline your internal recruitment process by adding this information to each listing.
- Set expectations. Clarify the type of employment you’re offering by tagging the job type correctly (which ties into tip #17). Make sure you note whether your jobs are full-time, part-time, permanent or temporary.
- Check out the competition. Look at similar Google job postings on Google for Jobs. Does your post stand out? Is there something you might be missing? Reviewing other job listings can help you come up with creative ways to differentiate your posts.
- Check, double-check, and check again. If you’re a Jobiak customer, your structured jobs are already indexed and ranked on Google so you can ignore this tip. If your jobs aren’t showing up or ranking well, review them. Check that you’ve adhered to the tips listed in this article and that your jobs follow schema requirements.
- Get help. If your job posts still aren’t visible or ranking in Google for Jobs, request a free Google for Jobs analysis.
Is it worth the work?
If it isn’t abundantly clear, doing things right on Google for Jobs is a tremendous amount of work. Unless you have technical resources dedicated to your jobs on Google, truly optimizing your jobs can seem like an insurmountable task. Unsurprisingly, most teams lack the time, resources, and technical literacy to manage everything, in real-time, on their own. That’s why many are looking to leverage AI and automation to help optimize their Google job postings and find and hire the right candidates quickly.
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