SEO is one of those phrases that gets bandied about when people talk about websites, but what does it really mean and why is it important?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. Search Engines are things we are all familiar with – Google, Bing, Ecosia (for the environmentally conscious searcher). We all know when you search for a topic the first handful of results are the paid-for ones; ads, sponsored links – this is how the Search Engines make their money by charging for clicks.
But how do the search engines decide what order the rest of the results come? They regularly scrape the entire internet looking at all website pages to collect information which is processed to create the list. This information is a combination of the text data contained within the page, and the data presented to the Search Engine by the server.
We work hard at Vet Pursuits to make sure we present the right information to the Search Engines to make sure your jobs get the most views. However, there are things that you can do to maximise the chance of your jobs getting seen:
Firstly you have to define your keywords – this is the search term that you would expect potential candidates to search for when looking for jobs. For example, this may be ‘Vet Jobs Manchester’ or ‘Small Animal Vet Jobs Norway’. The term should be no more than 5 words.
Once you have defined this term, use it in your advert. Lots. The more you use the exact term in the exact order, the better the page will get picked up by the Search Engines. It is particularly important that this phrase appear towards the top of your page so we suggest using it as your subtitle.
Secondly, pages with forward links score better – this is a link from the page to another website. When typing your description, select a portion of text and click on the icon above that looks like two interlinked paper clips – this will give you a box to enter the web address of the page you want to link to – your practice page would be a good example.
Thirdly, it will not improve your SEO, but it will make us happier, please add images and videos to your ads, they make them really stand out.
Last thing we will ask you to do – make sure in the location box you are specific. So if the job is in Birmingham, England, don’t just enter Birmingham, as otherwise the Search Engines will assume it is in Alabama!
If you do these simple things, it will move your jobs significantly higher up the SEO rankings, and improve the chances of finding the right candidates. However, if you want to go the whole hog, we can manually help improve other areas of the SEO, as part of our SE Optimisation service – this will be available as an add-on to any job advert.