Use Structured Data to Get Your Job Post on Google

employee working in restaurant

It’s no secret that the companies are having a hard time finding employees in 2021. One way to combat this is to get your job posting in front of as many people as possible. Getting your job posting on Google is a smart way of reaching more job seekers. And the process is easy if you already have a website. In this article, we’ll walk through the steps of adding the JobPosting structured data (also known as schema or markup) to the advertisements for employment on your website. This will make your job postings able to appear on Google Search today.

What is Job Search on Google?

Google’s Job Search is a new way to help job seekers find employment opportunities. Google uses information from the employer’s website, such as text and images of jobs being offered, in Search results for relevant queries. This makes it easy for people who are looking for work to find their next opportunity right within search engines on desktop or mobile devices.

Having your job ad displayed by Google is also a great way for employers to make sure their job ads are seen by as many people as possible. This is especially useful for small businesses who can get their jobs included on Google without having to place a paid ad on Indeed, Salary.com, or similar job posting services.

How does Google Job Search work?

Google will crawl your website and look for job posting structured data (also called schema markup) relating to your job posting. By including JobPosting structured data on your job description pages, you make it easy for Google to include your open positions in Google’s job seeker user experience right on search results.

Having your job listing appear in Google’s job listing allows for more interactive results featuring your logo, reviews, ratings, and job details. There’s also an increased chance of discovery by job seekers as your job posting will appear at the top of searches for jobs in your area.

Google continues to make an impact on the way that people find jobs. As more and more job seekers turn to Google for help finding a new gig, it’s important that you ensure your company is being represented in top placement by implementing structured data into your online postings. By including JobPosting structured data on pages with open positions, Google will be able to include your jobs in their search results for a specific location or keyword.

What do Google job postings look like?

what jobs on google search widget look like

When a user searches for terms like ‘places hiring near me’ ‘open positions in <city>’ ‘jobs <city>’, Google will show a special search experience highlighting job data it’s collected from employers’ websites, job boards, and other places online.

Users can interact with the job widget and refine the results. They can filter job postings by industry, date posted, location, job requirements, and a host of other options. They can save and share job postings and even create special alerts so they’ll be sure to be notified when jobs that meet their criteria are posted.

How to add a job to Google Search

Follow these steps to to add JobPosting structed data to your job description pages. Once added to the pages, your job postings will be able to be shown in the Jobs Search widget. This will help your job posting be found by the millions of job seekers who search Google every day.

Adding structured data to your website’s job posts makes it easy to connect listings with job boards and career sites. It is also easier for Google’s algorithms to crawl and index jobs, so your listing may rank higher in search results pages. Adding structured data can also increase how well a job posts ranks within Google Search. This type of information has been shown through research as making an impactful difference when it comes to getting noticed among other competitors.

Adding job posting structured data to your site will also help with overall search engine optimization.

Step 1: Make sure that Google can crawl your page

Create a new page on your website for each job posting. Make sure that Google can index the page. (not protected by a noindex tag or robots.txt file). You can check if Google has indexed the page by checking on Google Search Console.

Step 2: Add the required and recommended structured data to your job posting

Add the required and recommended structured data into the html of your website. The required and recommended JobPosting structured data can be found here. There are many ways to generate the code. I like to use the Schema Markup Generator. To use the generator, chose Job Posting and then fill in the required fields. You’ll be able to copy the code and paste it right into your webpage.

The required information needs to appear in the visible content of the page itself, not only in the structured data.

Required JobPosting Attributes

  • Publication date of the post
  • Job title
  • Full description of the job formated in HTML
  • Name of the company the job posting is for
  • Address of the location the job is at
  • The expiration date of the job post (valid through date)

There are also recommended properties you can add to your job posting. Adding this data will provide more information to job candidates and could be the deciding factor weather someone applies to your job posting or not.

Recommended JobPosting Attributes

  • Base salary
  • Employment type (full-time, part-time, contractor, intern)
  • Job location (telecommute or address)
  • Education requirements
  • Experience requirements

Step 3: Use the Rich Results Testing tool to preview your job post

Use the Rich Results Test Tool to preview how your structured data looks. This tool will tell you if there are any errors in the structured data. This tool is designed to help you see how Google might display a rich result based on the structured data markup that you’ve added.

Example JobPosting Structured Data using JSON-LD code

This is an example JobPosting structured data. You can copy the code, change the variables to match your job description, and then paste it into the page for your job posting. Be sure to check the page on the Rich Results Test to make sure your structured data is read properly.

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org/",
  "@type": "JobPosting",
  "title": "Digital Marketer",
  "description": "<p>Always Relevant Digital is seeking to hire a digital marketing specialist to work closely with our clients. Applicants should be familiar with web technologies and be a self-starter.</p>",
  "identifier": {
    "@type": "PropertyValue",
    "name": "Always Relevant Digital",
    "value": "10"
  },
  "hiringOrganization" : {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "Always Relevant Digital",
    "sameAs": "https://alwaysrelevantdigital.com"
  },
  "industry": "Marketing",
  "employmentType": "FULL_TIME",
  "workHours": "8am-5pm",
  "datePosted": "2021-05-11",
  "validThrough": "2021-05-18",
  "applicantLocationRequirements": {
    "@type": "Country",
    "name": ""
  },
  "jobLocationType": "TELECOMMUTE",
  "baseSalary": {
    "@type": "MonetaryAmount",
    "currency": "USD",
    "value": {
      "@type": "QuantitativeValue",
      "minValue": 30000,
      "maxValue": 50000,
      "unitText": "YEAR"
    }
  }
}
</script>

Your job listing now appears on Google Search

Your job posting can now appear in Google’s job search experience. It will lead to more job candidates seeing your listing and your organization finding the right fit for your open positions. Your company’s position listings will appear on page one of the results, which means that they’re much more likely to be seen by candidates.

If you’re looking for a way to get your content found on search engines, contact us. Our team of SEO experts is here waiting to offer help in any and all areas related to this topic.

Job Posting Structured Data FAQs

  • What is structured data?

    Structured data is a special format to mark up the information about web page. It can help search engines like Google, Bing and others better understand what your website’s content is all about. Structured Data may be used by rich snippets in order to visually improve user experience- where they get highlighted or shown as bold in search results.

    Structured data for SEO are formats that give you an advantage when it comes time of ranking on search engine result pages because they tell how specific components should be treated.

  • What is job schema?

    Job schema is a way to make your job postings appear on Google with details like hiring company, location and salary. To do this you need to add structured data markup that includes all of the information required for search engines. The best thing about using Job Schema is how it appears automatically in searches as well as having reviews and ratings so candidates can see what other people have said before they apply!

  • Why use structured data on your website?

    Structured data helps search engines understand how to display content, and this structured information is used for rich snippets as well as AMPs (Accelerated Mobile Pages). The use of these formats does not directly affect rankings but they can increase click-through rates which ranks pages higher in search engine results.

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