Recruitment SEO is usually measured in candidate traffic, which is the wrong number. Candidates cost you money to attract. Clients pay you. Very few agencies build search around the client side.
I run search programs for agencies directly, so a senior specialist does the work rather than an account manager relaying it. Every recommendation is judged on client enquiries, not rankings.
Job boards eat every candidate search, and agencies spend their SEO budget trying to compete. Meanwhile the searches employers make when they need to hire go almost entirely unclaimed.
One placement fee can be substantial and a retained client places repeatedly, so client-side enquiries are worth vastly more than candidate volume. Employers also research quietly before contacting anyone.
Build visibility for the searches employers make when hiring gets difficult, in the specialisations and industries you place into, rather than fighting job boards for candidate clicks.
Employers with a hiring problem follow a predictable path. Coverage is built at each point, in Google and in the AI tools now answering these questions.
A business struggles to fill a role and works out whether to use an agency, and what that costs. Increasingly they ask an AI assistant.
“how much do recruitment agencies charge”, “retained vs contingency recruitment”
They shortlist agencies. Specialisation, placement record, reviews and whether an AI tool names you decide who gets contacted.
“best [industry] recruitment agency [city]”, “[role] recruiter [city]”
One agency gets the brief. Clear fee structure, relevant placement evidence and credible consultants convert it.
“recruitment agency [city]”, “hire [role] [city]”
Scope follows your business, your market and your service mix. These are the components a program draws on.
Shifting the target from candidate volume to employer enquiries, focused on the specialisations and industries that pay best.
Pages written for the hiring manager: the roles you place, your process, your fee model and evidence you've placed similar people.
The content employers genuinely search for when planning a hire, from salary benchmarks to market availability, which positions you as the expert before they enquire.
Crawling, indexing and speed, plus handling job listing pages properly so they don't bloat or cannibalise the pages that matter.
Structured data and consistent, corroborated facts so AI tools name your agency when a business describes the role it needs filled.
Coverage, commentary and mentions on sources employers and AI models both trust, plus systematised review generation.
A business doesn't run on traffic. It runs on the work that gets won and what that work is worth.
LeadSight, my own attribution software, ties enquiries and closed work back to the channel that produced them, so your monthly report shows what SEO returned in dollars rather than which keywords moved.
How LeadSight works →I keep my client list small, and recruitment SEO works best where placement values justify targeting the client side.
Where you place into a defined discipline or industry, which is exactly what search and AI answers reward.
Where fees are substantial, buyers research discreetly, and credibility carries the decision.
Where you have consultant capacity and candidate supply, and clients are the constraint.
Candidates are a cost centre; clients are revenue. Job boards have also spent enormous sums owning candidate search, and competing there is expensive and rarely worth it. The client-side searches are far less contested and worth vastly more per enquiry.
Occasionally, and they cause more problems than most agencies realise. Listings expire, get thin over time and can bloat a site with low-value pages. Handled properly they're fine; left unmanaged they actively hold back the pages that generate client enquiries.
It's some of the best-performing content in this industry. Employers search salary benchmarks while planning a hire, which is precisely when you want to be the expert in front of them. It also earns links and coverage, and it's exactly the kind of data AI tools cite.
It's the most common issue with agency sites. “Recruitment agency” is unrankable and unmemorable to an AI model. Being unmistakably the specialist in a discipline or industry is what makes both search and AI recommendation possible.
No, not in the same specialisation and market. I keep my client list deliberately small and won't work both sides.
Expect early movement in two to three months from technical and specialisation work. Employer buying cycles depend on when they next need to hire, so judge the full picture over two to three quarters.
Send your domain through and I’ll review your site, your competition and your AI visibility before we speak. No obligation, and a straight answer on whether it’s worth the spend.