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Your agency has two audiences. Companies hand you positions to fill. Candidates respond to your job ads. On Google, job boards hold almost all candidate searches, and I won't tell you otherwise. Company searches are few, but a single assignment represents substantial fees. I organise your website into two separate journeys, so that each of these audiences lands on pages written for them.
15 years in SEO
4 books on SEO and GEO
200+ sites tracked every day
1M / month visits to my e-commerce site
They trusted me with their visibility
Darty
Eurofins
Cegid
EBP
CNP Assurances
Ingram MicroYour result, as read by a hiring business owner
A factory manager is looking for an agency to recruit technicians near Angoulême. Your website appears in third place, below a job board and a directory. Its title starts with “Home” and its description talks about talent. Nothing tells him you recruit for this trade. Rewrite both.
Fig. 1. Three results for a recruitment agency. The first two never meet a candidate. (The factory manager was looking for an agency. Your description invited him to upload his CV.)
What this means for you. I rewrite the title and description of each page so that a business owner reads the roles you recruit for, your area and the way you work.
SEO for a recruitment agency is the work that makes the agency visible on Google to two audiences: companies looking for a provider to help them recruit, and candidates looking for a job. It relies on pages by role and by sector for companies, on job ads published properly for candidates, and on consultants introduced by name. It is judged by the assignments won and the useful applications received.
The problem
On “job” followed by a role and a town, the first page belongs to job boards and job aggregators. They often republish your own ads. Your website won't replace them. It can, however, attract candidates looking for an agency in their speciality.
Many agency websites boil down to a list of jobs and a candidate area. A business owner looking for an agency to recruit a production manager finds no page for them. Yet they are the one paying for the assignment.
A filled position is deleted, and its page with it. The website keeps losing what it had just gained on Google. The only lasting pages are the home page and the contact page, which answer no specific search.
An audit, for real
The site below doesn't exist, but its flaws do: they're the five I spot most often. Hover over a number.
Tomorrow's talent, today
We put people at the heart of every meeting between a company and a candidate.
Upload my CVFig. 2. Fictional site, reconstructed. Any resemblance to yours would be a good reason to call me.
What your customers type
Here are six plausible searches, three from companies and three from candidates. They are examples. The audit gives the real list for your specialities.
What works
A “Hiring?” entry point gathers everything a client wants to read: your specialities, your method, your timescales, your fees, the consultants. Each page ends with a direct number. A business owner should never have to go through the candidate area to reach you.
These pages serve both your audiences. The company reads that you know the role. The candidate finds the open vacancies and the kind of profiles you support. They stay online all year round, even with no open vacancy.
Each job ad has its own address, a clear job title, a location, a contract type and a date. Google can then include it in its job listings box. You write the substance of the ad, because the rules on job ads are your responsibility.
A client entrusts an assignment to a person, and a candidate responds to a person. Each consultant has a page: their sectors, their roles, their background, a way to contact them. This page also reassures candidates approached through headhunting.
Candidates readily leave a review, good or bad. Clients rarely do. I help you ask companies for a review after a successful assignment and reply calmly to disappointed candidates.
What costs dearly
If your ads don't exist on your website, all candidates stay with the middleman. Your website must carry the original version of each job ad.
The address then returns an error to candidates who had saved it. I redirect it to the role's permanent page, which presents the vacancies still open.
“Talent acquisition partner M/F” or a file reference match no search. The title must be the one the candidate types, followed by the location.
The business owner wants to know how you search, how many candidates you present and what happens if the person leaves. With no answer, they call an agency that explains it.
The method
Four steps. From the start, I separate what is aimed at companies from what is aimed at candidates.
One-minute test
Five frank questions to find out whether support makes sense in your situation. Sometimes the answer is no, and I'll tell you.
What it brings in
A ranking doesn't pay a salary. What counts is what it brings: enquiries, customers, revenue. Move your page up and see what it could bring in.
Example assumptions, open to challenge: 200 searches a month for a recruitment agency in your speciality, 3% of visitors make an enquiry, one enquiry in three is signed (this varies a lot from one trade to another), €8,000 per client. Click-through rates by position are orders of magnitude, and they have been shifting since Google started showing AI answers above the results. Redo the calculation with your figures
Possible revenue€0
Close to home
In Charente, an agency can recruit for very different employers: manufacturing and services around Angoulême, roles in the cognac industry, and businesses in small towns such as Jarnac, Barbezieux, Ruffec or Confolens. A candidate looks for a job with the name of a town. A business owner looks for an agency with the name of a role. Your pages must answer both. I live between Cognac and Paris, and I know the département.
If you recruit for employers in the urban area, write one page per role: technicians, engineers, managers. Each names Angoulême and the neighbouring towns, describes the position, and speaks both to the business owner and to the candidate hesitating to move.
Négoce, production, packaging and export have their own roles and vocabulary. If you recruit for these houses and their suppliers, a dedicated page shows it. It can also be read by candidates from other regions targeting this sector.
A candidate from another region looks into quality of life, housing and their partner's job prospects. A local agency can write a page answering these questions. Your clients can also use it during their interviews.
Beyond Google
Business owners now describe their position to an AI such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Mistral before looking for a provider. For example: “I'm looking for a maintenance manager for an industrial site near Cognac, I haven't had a single serious application in three months, which agency can help me?”. Candidates do the same to find out which agencies recruit in their field.
The AI answers with what it has been able to read on your website, your Google Business Profile and the job ads you publish. An agency that states the same specialities, sectors and consultants everywhere is easy to describe. “Agency in Charente, technical and management roles in manufacturing, named consultant” is enough for it. “Your human resources partner” tells it nothing.
Question asked to an AII'm looking for a maintenance manager for an industrial site near Cognac. Which recruitment agency can help me?
Three types of answer for this position:
Fig. 3. Reconstruction, names hidden. This is the spot we aim for: on the list, with the most precise description.
Three typical cases
These three agencies are textbook cases I made up. They show where I start. Your plan will come from your audit.
She recruits sales managers and lives off her network.
It receives plenty of applications and few company enquiries.
It recruits in manufacturing and wants to develop construction roles.
In practice
Pricing
The fee depends on four things. I give you a precise amount after a free first thirty-minute conversation.
Fancy a game?
The copycat, the price-slasher, the big chain: they all want your spot. Grab the piece and slide it into the slot.
INSERT COINSLIDE THE COIN INTO THE SLOT
Fig. 4. Sixteen seconds, five opponents, only one first place.
Together, let's devour your competitors.
One by one, and in order. Every spot gained makes the next one easier to take: that's why it keeps growing. See the method
Who you're talking to
My name is Kévin Papot. More than fifteen years in the job, four co-written books, and the Newp agency, co-founded in Charente. I also run my own online shops, in France and internationally: one of them went from zero to a million visits a month.
Before we talk tags, we talk margin, average basket and profitability. When you book a call, I'm the one who picks up.
FAQ
On common job searches, no. These sites have a scale your agency doesn't. Your ads can, however, appear in Google's job listings box, and your role pages can appear for rare positions.
Both, but with separate pages. I almost always start with companies, because they are the ones who sign assignments. Candidates follow once the role pages and job ads are properly published.
Look at what an assignment is worth to you. If two or three serious enquiries a month comfortably cover the budget, the maths is simple. I help you work it out with your figures before we start.
You and your consultants. I give you a template structure: job title, location, contract, duties, profile. I don't touch the substance of the ad. The rules on job ads are your responsibility and your client's.
You publish it without naming the company, giving the sector, size and area. The page stays useful to the candidate and to Google. If the client refuses any publication, the role's permanent page takes over.
Yes, as long as they bring you candidates. Your website's SEO comes on top of those ads. Over time, you'll see which ads get enough direct applications to cut that spending.
By asking at the right moment, for example at the end of the placed candidate's probation period. I prepare a simple message your consultants send. For negative reviews from candidates, I suggest short, factual replies.
It depends on what it produces. I check whether each ad has its own address on your domain name and whether Google can read it. If not, I tell you which settings to ask your supplier for.
Properly published job ads can be picked up by Google within a few days. Pages aimed at companies generally take several months to settle in. I won't give you any date in advance. Every month you see the enquiries received and where they came from.
I have fifteen years of SEO behind me and I co-founded Newp, which is also a business selling services to other businesses. I know what it is like to sell a service to a business owner. You'll explain your trade to me during the audit.
See also
30 minutes · video call · with me
Together we look at where you stand on Google and in AI, and what should change first.
