A recruitment website has two audiences who never search the same way: candidates looking for jobs and hiring managers looking for a recruiter. SEO for recruitment agencies means serving both, keeping a constantly changing job board healthy for search engines, and building the permanent sector pages that win client briefs. That balance is what I work on with staffing firms, executive search practices and specialist recruiters.
Two audiences, two search patterns
Most agencies get plenty of candidate traffic and very few client enquiries from search, then conclude that SEO does not bring business. The cause is usually that the site was built around the job board, and the client side was never given pages of its own.
| Audience | Example searches | Page that should answer |
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | “warehouse jobs Leicester”, “remote React developer jobs”, “nursing jobs in Saudi Arabia for Pakistani nurses” | Job listing pages and individual vacancies with JobPosting markup |
| Candidate | “accountant salary Dubai”, “how to pass a competency interview” | Salary guide pages and career advice linked to live roles |
| Client | “IT recruitment agency Manchester”, “healthcare staffing agency Texas” | Sector page written for employers, with an office link |
| Client | “executive search firm for manufacturing”, “RPO provider” | Service page explaining the model, process and how fees work |
| Client | “temporary staff for events at short notice” | Temporary staffing page with response times and coverage stated honestly |
I keep these two sides separate in the site structure and in analytics. If applications and client enquiries are counted as the same conversion, nobody can tell which side organic search is helping.
Winning client briefs: the pages most agencies are missing
Hiring managers want evidence that you understand their sector and can fill their roles. A thin sector intro sitting above a job search widget does not provide that. The pages that work include:
- Sector pages for employers, one per market you recruit in, covering the roles you place, typical hiring challenges in that sector, how you source candidates, and the consultants who lead it.
- Service model pages for permanent, contract, temporary, executive search, retained search and RPO, explaining how each works, what you need from the client and how fees are typically structured.
- Consultant profiles with the sectors and seniority each person covers, their background, and a direct contact route. Clients choose a recruiter as much as an agency.
- Market insight content, such as salary guides, hiring surveys and skills shortage reports, published as indexable pages rather than gated PDFs. These are the pages that earn links from trade press and industry bodies, which feeds my off-page SEO work.
- Office pages for each real branch, linked to its Google Business Profile with the category Employment agency, Recruiter or Executive search firm as appropriate.
The job board: freshness without the mess
Recruitment sites are unusual because a large share of their pages appear and disappear every week. Vacancies are posted, filled and removed, often automatically through a feed from your applicant tracking system or CRM, such as Bullhorn, Vincere, JobAdder or Mercury. Done well, that flow of fresh pages helps. Done badly, it produces thousands of dead URLs, duplicate listings and wasted crawling.
Google for Jobs and JobPosting markup
Candidates often see a vacancy first in Google’s job listings feature. Eligibility depends on complete JobPosting structured data: title, a full description, date posted, valid-through date, employment type, hiring organisation, job location or remote eligibility, and salary where you publish it. Filled roles must be removed from the markup and sitemap promptly, because expired jobs still marked as live go against Google’s job posting guidelines and frustrate candidates. Google also offers an Indexing API specifically for job posting pages, which helps new and expired roles get picked up faster.
What happens to a filled vacancy URL
There is no single right answer. For high-volume boards where roles rarely repeat, returning a 404 or 410 is usually fine. For specialist roles that earned links or recur often, keeping the page as “filled” with links to similar live roles can work, as long as the JobPosting markup is removed. Redirecting thousands of expired jobs to the home page is the option to avoid, as Google treats that as a soft 404.
Faceted search and duplicates
Filters for location, salary, sector and job type can create near-infinite URL combinations. I decide which combinations deserve indexable landing pages (for example “accountancy jobs in Birmingham”) and keep the rest out of the index. The same role posted by several consultants or under several locations is another common source of duplication. These fixes are part of my technical SEO services.
Compliance points for recruitment content
- Discriminatory wording in adverts. Equality laws in the UK, US and elsewhere restrict job adverts that indicate preferences by age, sex, race, religion or other protected characteristics, so phrases such as “young and energetic” or nationality preferences need care. Clients sometimes supply specs with this language, and your consultants should catch it before publishing.
- Pay transparency. Several US states and cities, including Colorado, California, Washington and New York City, require salary ranges in job postings, and the EU Pay Transparency Directive is bringing similar requirements across Europe.
- Candidate data. CV uploads and registration forms collect personal data. UK GDPR and GDPR require a clear privacy notice and a lawful basis; in the UK, agencies must also follow the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations.
- Overseas recruitment from Pakistan. Agencies recruiting Pakistani workers for jobs abroad must hold an Overseas Employment Promoter licence from the Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment, and that licence number should be visible on the site. Candidates in this market are wary of fraud, so it is also a strong trust signal.
I flag these for your compliance lead; I do not give employment law advice.
Common mistakes on recruitment websites
- The job board sits on a vendor subdomain that the main site barely links to, so authority does not flow between them.
- Location pages created automatically for every town in the job feed, with no unique content beyond the listings.
- A blog full of CV tips when the business actually needs client enquiries.
- Job descriptions pasted from client specs full of internal jargon, written for nobody.
- A mobile application form that demands a CV upload and account creation on the first screen.
- Salary guides published only as gated PDFs that search engines cannot read.
What I deliver for recruitment and staffing agencies
- An SEO audit split into candidate-side and client-side findings, with job board issues written up for your platform vendor or developer.
- A sector and service page plan for the clients you want more of, with drafted pages for consultant review.
- JobPosting markup checks, an expired vacancy policy and faceted URL rules.
- Consultant profile templates and office page clean-up, including Google Business Profiles.
- A plan for salary guides or market reports that can earn links.
- Separate tracking for applications, candidate registrations and client enquiries, with a monthly report.
For agencies recruiting across borders, such as Pakistani or UK agencies placing candidates in the Gulf, I add country targeting from my international SEO services. UK agencies can read more on my UK SEO services page. Most agencies see client-side pages start to move within three to six months, depending on how competitive their sectors and cities are.
Frequently asked questions
Can you work with our recruitment website platform?
Yes. Many agencies use specialist platforms with fixed templates. I separate what you can change in the admin from what needs a request to the vendor, so you are not chasing fixes that are impossible on your plan.
Our roles also appear on job boards like Indeed and LinkedIn. Is that a problem?
No, it is normal. What matters is that your own version is complete, correctly marked up and published first or at the same time, so it has a fair chance of being the one Google shows.
How many sector pages should we have?
One for each sector where you have consultants and a track record of placements, and no more. A page for a sector you rarely recruit in will not convince a hiring manager.
Is it worth writing salary guides?
Often yes, if you have real placement data to base them on. They attract both candidates and employers and are one of the few recruitment assets other sites willingly link to. Publish them as web pages and update them each year.
Do you need access to our ATS or candidate database?
No. I need Search Console, analytics and ideally a sample of your job feed. Candidate data stays in your systems.
If your job board is busy but client enquiries from search are rare, request a free SEO audit. Tell me the sectors where you most want new clients, and I will show you where the balance has slipped.