Persistent and embedded skills shortages in the UK have upped the ante even further for hiring agencies, which cannot afford to rest on their laurels and must use all available opportunities to source the talent they need to support partners, and ultimately, to survive. This is particularly key in the current climate, with broader economic challenges to contend with, and with more organisations resorting to in-house recruitment in attempts to limit costs. However, hiring agency numbers have, according to data from Companies House, grown on average 27% per year since 2008, meaning the landscape is far more crowded and more competitive than ever before.
On top of maintaining visibility with candidates, agencies must also keep on the radar of potential clients, and while there are several approaches that can support in achieving these goals, one core tactic that straddles both is effective search engine optimisation.
With this in mind, we’ve outlined why SEO in recruitment is so pivotal and how agencies can optimise their strategies in 2026.
It’s not just traditional search engines that agency marketers must focus on, but, increasingly, AI tools too. Most readers will also likely be under considerable pressure to do more with less, and therefore ensuring they are being efficient in their investments and activity is essential. A key focus should be on keeping up to date with the regular updates made to search engine algorithms, as this dictates longer-term success in this area. After all, without knowing the rules, it’s hard to play the game.
The core method of ensuring a valuable search engine ranking is to have regular, insightful content on the website, particularly in the form of a blog. This provides the perfect opportunity to add material, which will support better rankings, as search engines thrive on websites that are updated regularly. The more content a site has, the more opportunity Google has to index its data and therefore its chances of ranking highly improve. Equally, producing regular, valuable material highlights the organisation’s expertise, builds credibility, trust, and develops relationships with its audiences.
When it comes to search terms, modern algorithms now reward longer, more detailed key phrases, evidence of real-world impact, seamless mobile experiences, and clear content structures. However, the keywords and phrases are by far the most valuable single element, and researching the right ones is therefore an essential part of effective SEO. There are tools and programmes to aid with this activity, but equally, speaking to consultants and members of the team to better understand audiences can also help too.
Maintaining search rankings and a seamless user experience requires regular technical audits. As highlighted above, algorithms adapt or change entirely regularly, and marketers must both keep pace with these pivots and also check for broken links, redirect chains, duplicate content issues and manage XML sitemap health, which all feed into SEO activity. Cleaner site architecture - where users can move quickly and easily between pages - also encourages repeat visits, which again supports better visibility, so remaining on top of the more mundane data management tasks can have a big impact.
An often-overlooked part is the role of pillar content, which actually forms the cornerstone of effective modern SEO. This acts as the central repository for all content and is an opportunity to encompass all the organisation’s areas of expertise, focus and essentially what it would like to be known for. While specific content will vary depending on the company, all hiring specialist pages should cover topics including interview strategies, career progression paths and sector trends, for example, and then interlink the pages accordingly to create a logical site hierarchy that both candidates and search engines can leverage.
The most effective SEO strategies incorporate written content combined with other types, including video and audio, as this represents the best opportunity to boost scores. However, this can be a challenging and time-consuming task, not least because – on top of the production stages - all content requires clear indexing, and should include transcripts, descriptive titles and timestamped chapters, while podcasts should lean on question-style headings and long-tail phrases to improve voice-search discoverability. A homogeneous approach doesn’t work here, and treating each media asset as a standalone, optimised page will benefit SEO outcomes.
Finally, true SEO success is based heavily on refreshing and iterating content. If search engines gauge that a site hasn’t been updated in a while, or it’s uploading tired, old material, then it will reflect in the SEO score. However, don’t just generate content for the sake of it; a more targeted approach is far more efficient. But rather than just tracking impressions or clicks, dig deeper into metrics such as average time on page, scroll depth and form completion rates and correlate these figures with data on CV submissions and interview attendance, for example. Establishing a regular review process every quarter will ensure that older articles are updated and new content is consistently added, which then signals to search engines that the site remains authoritative and relevant.
It's simple…. right? Not quite; SEO is a challenging and often arduous activity; however, it offers major rewards. More importantly, agencies that don’t look to optimise their strategies will become increasingly invisible, and in certain industries, this can be fatal. Instead, conducting regular checks of overall efficacy and ensuring that regular content is being added to the site should enable firms to continue to rank highly and be easily found by their target clients and candidates.
If your agency is looking for guidance on maximising its use of social media in the recruitment process, get in touch with our team today.
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