How a Recruiting Platform Grew Traffic by 7,656% in 6 Months
https://www.hirequotient.com/
Stats
48.2K to 3.7M Monthly Visits
Industry
Workforce Solutions
Niche
Staffing & Recruiting
Reporting Date
November 2024
HireQuotient is a recruitment automation platform designed for non-tech hiring. It uses AI and automation to streamline the hiring process for staffing teams.
At the end of 2024, HireQuotient achieved outstanding traffic growth through a successful SEO campaign.
Organic traffic skyrocketed from 48.2K to 3.7M monthly visits over 6 months, marking an incredible 7,656% increase.
In this SEO case study, we'll look at the strategies HireQuotient used to achieve these numbers.
You'll also learn how to replicate (and, in some cases, improve) these wins on your website with WordPress tools and tutorials.
Let’s get started.
In This Article
The Catalyst: How HireQuotient Reached 3.7M Monthly Visits
1. Fresh Content Generates 98.7% of Site Traffic
Over the last 6 months, HireQuotient invested SEO efforts into content creation.
They created hundreds of new landing pages and blog posts to expand their content portfolio.
About 100 pages of this new content are responsible for 98.7% of U.S. traffic, which is HireQuotient's primary target audience.
Even more impressive, the top 5 organic pages generated over half of all monthly traffic.
Now, here’s the thing about HireQuotient’s fresh content:
It’s not directly related to HR or staffing.
In fact, it doesn’t seem related at all.
As we can see in the screenshot above, some of the top pages are about converting media files and measurements. (This is true for most of their new content.)
This isn’t necessarily the best approach.
HireQuotient is diluting its topical authority around staffing and recruiting with unrelated topics.
As an SEO analyst, I would have preferred to see an influx of fresh content about hiring tools, talent sourcing, etc.
These topics would support HireQuotient’s niche authority, which, ultimately, contributes to long-term SEO success and business growth.
Despite the difference in opinions, it’s undeniable that HireQuotient’s content strategy earned them quick rankings.
Keyword rankings increased by nearly tenfold over these 6 months.
Why this matters:
This strategy highlights the impact of content creation on organic traffic growth.
And while HireQuotient's choice of topics may seem counterintuitive for a recruitment platform, it demonstrates the power of capitalizing on low-competition keywords to achieve rapid rankings.
For your website, I'd recommend selecting low-competition keywords that align with your niche.
This approach will allow you to grow your rankings quickly while supporting your overall topical authority.
How to find low-competition keywords:
This WordPress tutorial shows you how to identify low-competition keywords for your website.
It uses basic keyword research practices and pays special attention to keyword difficulty, which measures how easy it is to rank for a query.
Here’s a brief overview of the steps:
- Select a low-competition keyword research tool, like Semrush or LowFruits.
- Perform a keyword search and check its difficulty.
- Find related keywords with low difficulty.
Tools for content optimizations:
Now that you have your long-tail keywords, it’s time to work on creating and optimizing your content.
Content optimization tools will streamline this process and ensure your web page has maximum reach.
My top pick?
All in One SEO’s (AIOSEO) new Writing Assistant. Not only does it grade your content against the competition, but it also helps you discover relevant keywords to your topic.
Here, we see how a blog post scores in comparison to other top-ranking pages:
And in this screenshot, the Optimization Wizard gives us related keywords to our focus keyword:
Writing Assistant works by integrating your SEOBoost account into AIOSEO. It’s powerful, beginner-friendly, and can speed up content optimizations for faster rankings.
2. Schema Markup Earns Review Snippets for the First Time
Another new addition in 2024 was HireQuotient’s implementation of schema markup.
Schema markup is a type of structured data that lives within your website's HTML code. It communicates important details about your web page to search engines in a way that's easy for them to understand.
Search engines can also use schema markup to generate SERP features, which are enhanced search listings.
There are several schema types, many of which produce unique SERP features.
For example, HireQuotient uses AggregateRating schema generously throughout its new content.
This schema type shares the average customer rating of a product or service.
Search engines can use this information to produce a review snippet, which shows this rating in SERPs.
It appears that HireQuotient started using AggregateRating schema in the summer of 2024.
This small but powerful strategy has greatly impacted their rankings with SERP features.
HireQuotient started earning review snippets for the first time in July.
By November, they’re up to 212.6K review snippets, proving the efficacy of their implementation.
Why this matters:
This strategy demonstrates the impact of schema markup on online visibility and user engagement.
By using AggregateRating schema to display customer ratings in search results, HireQuotient has:
- Increased Visibility: Review snippets stand out in search results, capturing user attention and driving higher clickthrough rates.
- Enhanced User Experience: Review snippets provide valuable information directly in SERPs, allowing users to quickly assess the quality of a product or service.
- Competitive Advantage: By earning rich snippets, HireQuotient gains a competitive edge over websites that may not be using structured data.
How to implement schema markup:
Working without an SEO plugin? Follow this tutorial to learn how to add schema markup manually in WordPress.
It requires basic coding knowledge.
You’ll also need to generate the structured data using a tool like Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper.
Tools for schema markup:
Hate the idea of touching code?
You’re not alone. Many website owners don’t feel comfortable working with JSON-LD or HTML.
And the good news is that you don’t have to.
With schema generator plugins, you can get the structured data you need without the hassle.
First, navigate to the AIOSEO Schema Generator in the WordPress editor of your post or page.
Then, select your schema. (To replicate HireQuotient’s strategy, you would pick Product.)
From here, the plugin will prompt you to enter important details about your page.
In our example, I selected Product. We can see how AIOSEO asks for review details, which will give us the AggregateRating schema we saw from HireQuotient.
Once you save your schema, AIOSEO will format it for Google.
3. Strategic Formatting Wins People Also Ask Rankings
In this strategy, HireQuotient uses a common technique of SEO professionals:
They optimize content for Google People Also Ask (PAA).
This area of the SERP presents users with questions related to their query. Users can expand these questions to reveal the answer and its source.
This section of the SERP is well-known for increasing your organic search visibility and boosting brand awareness.
It’s also a good way to build trust with your audience because users generally find these results more reliable.
As for how HireQuotient optimizes for them, they use the following strategies:
- Write a question-based subheading.
- Reiterate the question in answer form in the body copy.
- Front-load your answer at the beginning of the paragraph. (You can provide additional context in the copy below.)
Here’s an example of these optimizations from the HireQuotient blog post that earned the earlier PAA ranking:
HireQuotient also includes FAQs at the bottom of many articles, another proven strategy for ranking in Google PAA.
Overall, these formatting optimizations proved fruitful, earning HireQuotient 9K rankings in Google PAA.
Why this matters:
By strategically formatting content around common user questions, HireQuotient has:
- Increased Visibility: PAA rankings significantly enhance search engine visibility and drive organic traffic.
- Enhanced Brand Authority: Appearing frequently in PAA boxes builds trust and credibility with users. This can significantly improve brand perception over time.
- Improved User Experience: FAQs and PAA rankings provide users with quick and easy access to information.
How to rank in Google PAA:
Here are 5 easy steps for ranking in Google People Also Ask:
- Use an SEO tool.
- Perform keyword research.
- Create people-first content.
- Add FAQ schema.
- Look at competitors.
(For an in-depth explanation of each step, visit the above link.)
Tools for PAA rankings:
With AIOSEO, you can add FAQs that are optimized for search engines.
FAQ blocks are easy to use and automatically implement FAQ schema markup.
Just locate the AIOSEO – FAQ Block in the WordPress editor and add it to your content.
The plugin will format your schema markup behind the scenes, encouraging search engines to use your content in SERP features.
Standout SEO Wins
Before we wrap up, there’s a final SEO technique worth highlighting at HireQuotient:
Author Bylines Build Customer Trust
HireQuotient includes author bylines at the end of each blog post.
Author bylines are a great way to showcase your team’s talent and build relationships with your readers.
Here are some benefits of highlighting authors in your content:
- Humanize Your Brand: Bylines put a face to the content, making your brand more relatable and personable. Readers are more likely to engage with content written by real people.
- Establish Expertise: When readers see that content is written by industry experts, they are more likely to trust the information. This builds credibility and authority. (A foundational concept of Google E-E-A-T.)
- Improve SEO: Author bylines can include relevant keywords and links to the author's social media profiles. This supports E-E-A-T, which can improve search engine visibility and drive traffic back to your website.
Note: Google E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
Tool: You can create and show author bylines and profiles with the Author SEO addon from AIOSEO.
Select what information you want to present, such as credentials, education, and employer.
You can also add reviewers to your content, making it more trustworthy and reliable to users and search engines.
Takeaways
In our analysis of HireQuotient’s SEO, we’ve discovered the strategies that led to their recent success.
Now, let’s recap which strategies to replicate on your website and others to reconsider.
Top 3 Strategies to Emulate
- Target low-competition keywords to win quick rankings. When building out your content, low-competition keywords can be an easy entry point for small businesses. These keywords have fewer websites competing for them, meaning they're easier to rank for. They also tend to represent more targeted traffic and have higher conversion rates. This makes them extremely valuable for SEO and generating sales.
- Use schema markup to stand out in SERPs. Implementing schema markup is considered a technical SEO best practice. It makes it easier for search engines to understand your web pages, which can positively influence keyword rankings. Search engines also use schema markup to generate SERP features, like review snippets, image snippets, and PAA rankings.
- Optimize for users and Google People Also Ask. By focusing on user intent and addressing common questions, you can improve the user experience and rank in Google's PAA box. Some ways to achieve this include FAQs, writing question-based subheadings, and providing clear answers. These optimizations take a people-first approach, which search engines can recognize and reward.
Bottom 3 Strategies to Reconsider
- Don't create content for search engine rankings only. Search engines prefer people-first content, which is designed for users. HireQuotient achieves this with fresh content, but the issue arises when evaluating how this content fits into the rest of the website. Unfortunately for HireQuotient, many of its new rankings and organic traffic are from articles that are not related to its niche. This can lead to quick rankings in the short-term but could ultimately lead to a drop in topical authority and organic performance down the line. Instead, focus on bringing genuine value to your target audience.
- Don’t neglect the power of FAQ schema. Even though I didn't find any traces of FAQ schema on HireQuotient's website, that doesn't mean you should skip it! FAQ schema helps search engines understand your content and generate SERP features like People Also Ask. Plus, it's super easy to include with a schema generator plugin or FAQ blocks. Either of these tools will implement the schema for you, so you don't have to format it for search engines.
- Don’t forget to include canonical tags. I noticed that HireQuotient doesn’t set canonical URLs on their web pages. This isn't a huge issue if you don't have pages with duplicate or similar content, but it can potentially create confusion for search engines. Canonical tags tell search engines exactly which URL is your preferred version of a web page. When you don't set one and have similar content on multiple URLs, search engines will pick whichever it thinks is best. This may not align with the page you actually want to rank. To avoid this issue, include canonical tags on every indexable page. You can easily manage canonical URLs in AIOSEO.
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Boost Your Rankings & Traffic With AIOSEO
Achieving this level of traffic growth requires a multifaceted approach and consistent effort.
And while HireQuotient's success story provides valuable insights, some of these strategies can be time-consuming when performed manually.
This is where AIOSEO comes in.
AIOSEO is the best SEO plugin for WordPress, saving you valuable time on optimizations. You'll get a suite of beginner-friendly and advanced tools to cover all your SEO needs for higher rankings and more organic traffic.
Here are a few of our favorites:
- Writing Assistant: Connect your SEOBoost account to AIOSEO to get content optimization suggestions directly in the WordPress editor. You’ll get real-time feedback to improve your content’s visibility in search engines.
- Robots.txt Editor: Control how bots crawl your site with the Robots.txt Editor, which allows you to override default WordPress settings. This tool makes it simple to view your robots.txt file and manage rules.
- Rich Snippets Schema: Win more rich results with AIOSEO’s user-friendly schema generator. Just pick the schema type you want, and we’ll format the structured data properly for Google.
- FAQ Blocks: Add FAQs to your content to increase the likelihood of appearing in Google’s People Also Ask box. These results help boost brand awareness and increase clickthrough rates.
- Author SEO: Create powerful author bios that showcase your experience and expertise. This addon aligns your content with Google E-E-A-T guidelines and builds trust with readers.
- Keyword Rank Tracker: Take control of your SEO performance and monitor keyword rankings directly in WordPress. This tool empowers you to have a constant pulse on your most important keywords, allowing you to adjust your strategy as necessary.
