7 Tips for Optimizing Your Job Posting on Google for Jobs
Are your job postings already listed on Google for Jobs? Congratulations—you’ve already cleared the first hurdle.
But that’s just the beginning. Just like optimizing for regular Google Search, there are many factors to consider to ensure your job posting is easily found and ranks near the top of the results. Optimize your job posting with the following tips.
If your job postings aren’t listed yet, why not post your first job listing right now.
1. Don’t experiment with the job title
The job title is the entry point to your job posting. Anyone who’s already familiar with Google optimization knows how important the main headline is for content. The same applies to job postings on Google for Jobs. The title of a job posting is the most important factor for search results.
It’s recommended to title positions using industry-standard jargon. Imagine what a potential applicant would be searching for. So it’s perfectly acceptable to title the position “Dental Assistant at a Dental Practice,” even if not everyone knows what a “Dental Assistant” is. But rest assured that the audience for whom the ad is relevant knows exactly what it’s about. There are also a few other important factors to consider when formulating the job title, such as the length of the title and how to handle gender-neutral language. It makes more sense not to include gender neutrality directly in the job title, since Google does not take this into account when ranking your ad. Of course, it’s extremely important to highlight gender equality in the job ad, but this should be done earlier in the description. For example, when the job title is mentioned again, you could add the abbreviation m/f/d to emphasize gender neutrality.
Here are a few examples of what you should avoid in your job ad titles:
1. WANTED! Dental Assistant (m/f/d) at a great, family-friendly dental practice
2. Dental Assistant for a dental practice in Wedel near Hamburg
3. Dental Assistant for a dental practice with a salary of €50,000.
The ideal wording for this job would be simply short and to the point: Dental Assistant at a dental practice. This is solely to ensure that your job posting is easily found by Google and thus reaches many applicants. All other information can then be presented in detail in the job description.
On traditional job portals like Xing or Stepstone, employers often try to stand out from the competition by being creative. If you own a café and need extra help behind the counter, it’s better to label the position “Barista” rather than “Coffee Lover.”
On Google for Jobs, however, the ranking mechanisms work differently than on Indeed and similar sites, where you can usually pay to improve a job listing’s ranking. On Google, you (still) have to earn this through high-quality content. Therefore, it’s advisable to use the specific job title in the job listing so that the ad can be easily found by Google.
✓ The title should be 35–50 characters long
✓ Do not include gender-neutral language in the title
✓ You can find more tips on how to optimize your job title in our tool
2. Think regionally
You may have already noticed that Google prioritizes jobs in your area. For example, if you search for “project management job” on Google, you’ll primarily see jobs near you. This means Google recognizes where job seekers are located when they start their search. This means potential applicants from Hamburg will see different job listings than job seekers from Munich.
Consequently, it’s essential to include the location in your job posting. If you haven’t specified a location in your job ad, your posting will likely not be shown to anyone.
As a general rule, the more precise you are about the work location, the better. Ideally, you should provide the full address.
However, if the job can be done remotely, you can, of course, specify this instead of a specific location.
3. One Location per Job Posting
As described above, the regional perspective is very important. If your company has openings at multiple locations, you should post them separately. For example, if you’re looking for an “SEO Expert” in Berlin and Düsseldorf, it’s recommended to post the job listing once with the location “Berlin” and once with the location “Düsseldorf”—even if all other content is identical.
4. Salary: Transparency Pays Off
When Google for Jobs was launched, it caused a bit of a stir in the HR world, as Google demanded greater transparency regarding salaries and built this feature directly into its new job portal. There, it’s possible to specify exactly what salary to expect for the advertised position. What is completely normal in other countries is still somewhat of a taboo subject in United States of America. Nevertheless, being transparent about salaries can pay off.
If you include the salary when posting a job listing on Google, it will be displayed directly in both the list view and the detailed view of the job. This is not only appealing to applicants but is also rewarded by Google’s algorithm.
5. Formatting the Job Description
While the previous tips focused primarily on Google SEO optimization with the goal of improving rankings, the focus now shifts to making the job posting appealing to candidates.
Admittedly, the options for designing job postings on Google for Jobs are rather limited. This is primarily intended to ensure the comparability of job listings by standardizing their presentation. The only formatting options available are:
Paragraphs
Bulleted lists
Some providers automatically generate and post job listings for Google for Jobs. As a result, the listings are often not formatted correctly or contain boilerplate text that doesn’t actually belong in the job posting.
Therefore, you should use the limited options available to make your job posting easy to read and well-organized for prospective candidates.
6. All important information belongs in the job description
Google’s job portal already displays a great deal of information to job seekers without requiring them to leave the platform. While it is possible to be redirected to the original website by clicking the “Apply for: …” button, in reality this only happens once a candidate has decided to apply for the job—not simply to view additional information about it.
Therefore, it’s very important to include all relevant information in the job description. These include:
Brief information about the company
Description of the duties
Requirements for the candidate
Benefits
Contact person with email address and phone number
7. Logo Integration
The only way to include an image on Google for Jobs is in the form of a logo. This appears in both the list view and the detail view.
The optimal format for the logo is square. While logos in other formats are also displayed, this wastes valuable space because the logo is simply scaled down until it fits into the designated square space.
Since logos are displayed very small on Google’s job board anyway (56 pixels x 56 pixels in the list view and 40 pixels x 40 pixels in the detail view), you should make the most of this precious space with an optimized logo. For very intricate and detailed logos, it’s a good idea to use a simplified version of the logo. For example, you could use the logo that’s also used as the favicon on your website.
If no logo is uploaded, a placeholder is automatically generated, consisting of a random background color and the company’s first initial.
Conclusion: Optimizing Job Postings for Google for Jobs
There are many factors to consider when optimizing a job posting for Google for Jobs, as you must optimize both for the Google algorithm and for job seekers. We’ve prepared a template for the ideal job posting.
However, what all optimization approaches have in common is that you need full control over the job postings on Google for Jobs in order to be able to make any optimizations at all.
This is exactly what SEO for Jobs offers with its intuitive user interface. Why not try it out right away and gain full control over your postings on Google for Jobs.
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