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Keep your SEEK ads at the top of the search results for longer.

by Brett Iredale August 28, 2008

Do you know the difference between the "job title" and the "search results title" on SEEK ?

Many people don't realise that there are 2 different titles, or that one is more important than the other.

On SEEK the job title that is returned in the summary results is called the "Search Results Title' in JobAdder.  This title can be different to the one that appears on the detailed view of the job ad.

If a job seeker does a keyword search to find a job then SEEK uses (among other things) the search results title to determine the best job matches for the search.  If your job ad has those keywords in the search results title then your job will rank higher in the search results than jobs that contain those keywords only in the body of the ad.

When writing your search results title it is important to consider what a job seeker might type in the keywords field to find your job.  For example if your job is a Java Developer and they need to have Oracle, SQL and J2EE experience then it would be a good idea to get as many of those words as you can into the search results title.

Below is a perfect example. I typed 'java developer oracle j2ee sql' in the keyword field.  Notice the second job that appears is actually 16 days old - yet it is number 2 in my search results.





If you use your search results title effectively then your ads will appear in more searches and therefore receive more applications.  This also means you don't need to continually refresh your job ads.  Write it once and write it properly and your 30 day ad will remain relevant for the full 30 days instead of 30 minutes.


Note : Don't just keyword load your search results title for the sake of it - your ad still needs to read well and make sense.



Entry filed under: General, Tips and Tricks

6 CommentsAdd your own

1. Interested 2 Know August 28, 2008 at 12:38pm

Brett, I'd be interested to know what constitutes a 'good' response these days in terms of ad summary views / detail ad views / ad view rate / response rate etc. I assume different success rates for different job categories, but what are the general benchmarks. Thanks for keeping us all posted!

2. David J August 28, 2008 at 6:00pm

Hi David - a 'good' response is anything that results in a placement :)

I am being a little flippant of course but the reality is there is no hard and fast rule for what constitutes good ad response numbers. For generalist job boards it really needs to be >1 applicant per job but for niche sites it can be anything from 0.2 or 0.5 apps per job through to 10-15 per job. It depends on the niche, location etc.

3. Brent L August 29, 2008 at 4:57pm

A good response does not necassaraly have to come back to numbers, I think you should certainly look into the quality of the candidate's applying.

4. Dan. O August 29, 2008 at 5:02pm

I totally agree with Brent. At the end of the day its all about Quality not Quantity !

5. Brett Iredale August 29, 2008 at 5:20pm

It is both really. It is hard to have quality without a certain level of quantity.

And then it comes down to whether your agency can actually effectively measure either metric.

6. Carey Eaton September 2, 2008 at 5:18pm

Hey Brett

I should point out to your readers that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and there's a little more to our search engine than meets the eye - whilst for this example its worked, it will not work in all examples.

Whilst its true that search results titles and job titles are fields that the engine looks at to determine relevance, there are over 50 variables that are also looked at - many advertisers try to focus on one or two variables, like vclume of keywords, or fields etc. Sometimes these will work, other times they will not.

Other important variables include the content of other ads - which change every minute or so - and also some other algorithms that detect 'keyword stacking' and penalise the ad accordingly.

To be specific about this, the search engine is tuned towards the jobseeker. Where the search engine detects deliberate attempts to add keyword volumes or otherwise trick the search engine into considering a less relevant ad as more relevant, the advertiser runs the risk of ending up at the bottom of the list not the top.

More importantly, jobseekers are very very good at detecting attempts by advertisers to 'trick' them into looking at their ads. Whilst some advertisers might fool the search engine, invariably they end up with terrible ad performance.

My advice to anyone is to write the ad for the jobseeker, using as much of the important information you can for the jobseeker - salary, location, company name if possible, some indication of the actual job. You'll get a far better response.

You're also absolutely spot on in pointing out the critical importance of using the fields in the search results summary to greatest effect - many people spend a lot of time writing the ad, but I'd spend the same amount thinking carefully about the search results summary because that's where much of ad performance is gained or lost.

One final thing you've touched on which is the enduring myth out there that you need to refresh your ads because SEEK's algorithm ranks everything by reverse chronological order.

This has not actually been true since September 23rd 2006 - the only time we do that is where someone searches on a classification only with no other keyword - we have no other dimension by which to sort except time, unless anyone things alphabetical is a good idea!

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