What Google initially dubbed Universal Search all the way back in 2007 has since become the norm for search results. Instead of simply listing web pages, all sorts of online content has made its way into the standard search result set. Any given search might bring up blog posts by specific authors, place information, stock quotes, news articles, ebook samples, PDF documents, tweets, photos, videos, and more.
The proliferation of content across the web and its presentation in search results represents a great opportunity for employers hoping to be found by job seekers. The best technique to capitalize on this opportunity is simply to be in more places.
The benefits of creating varied content are two-fold: First, the more places you appear, the more ways you may be found. While related, the various pieces of content you create should be somewhat different (some pieces, like video will be more different than others, like job postings). Those differences in content and location will help expand the number of ways that job seekers might come across your job.
The second benefit of this approach is that if someone searches for your job specifically, you will be more likely to “own” the results for that search. That is to say, the top results will be filled with all the different content from your company. As opposed to a single matching entry from you, and a bunch of related items from your competitors.
For example, if someone were to search for “sales job Company X” they might find the job from your corporate career site, similar versions of the job on a couple different job boards, the video about that job, as well as your recent blog post about it. All of those items have a good chance of appearing above all of the results that might show up for similar sales jobs at Company Y. By adding more of your own content, you’re leaving less room for theirs.
