Looking for ways to increase your organic traffic to your job board? Make sure you have the most important on-page Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques in place, such as keywords, schema, and sitemap.
What is a sitemap?
An XML sitemap helps search engines better understand what content is available on your site by listing all available pages (and jobs) on your website, to facilitate indexing. Luckily, your job board's XML sitemap is automatically generated by Niceboard and wherever you host your website. It is available at: yourdomainname.com/sitemap.xml
You can then submit your sitemap on Google Search Console: this will help speed up your job board's page indexing and jobs discovery, a key factor in having your jobs show up in the Google jobs results and your pages to show up on the search engine results page.
In Niceboard, your sitemap is automatically submitted to Google when connecting your Google Search Console account under “Manage board” > “Other” > “Indexing”.
1. More than APIs needed: Indexing of complete site
Your job board site is like a library, with each page representing a different section or book. Just as a library catalog helps visitors find specific books, a sitemap serves as a roadmap for search engines, guiding them to scan (& index) every last corner of your website. This is important since you want all your site’s pages—such as jobs, blog content, and category pages—to be discoverable on the Google search results
Your job board software might already provide you with an indexing API to index job postings, but the API usually does not index your content and category pages.
Note also that trying to get Google to index your whole page via API may violate search engine guidelines and result in penalties.
By submitting a sitemap, you ensure that every aspect of your site is discoverable by search engines, maximizing your chances of ranking higher and getting more clicks in relevant search queries.
2. Enhancing discoverability of complex sites
While it's true that search engines can index well-structured sites without sitemaps, the reality is that most job boards are rather complex and constantly growing in scope.
Relying solely on organic discovery by Google may result in crucial pages being overlooked or indexed inefficiently, and hence not being discoverable by searchers. Submitting a comprehensive sitemap allows you to proactively start the indexing process, ensuring that every page, regardless of its complexity or location within your site hierarchy, receives the attention it deserves from search engine crawlers.
3. Importance of sitemaps to search engines
As is the case with most SEO factors, there are varying opinions on the importance of sitemaps for Google’s algorithm. But fact is that Google still does prioritize sitemaps in addition to APIs for job boards as a valuable tool for understanding and indexing website content.
But let’s hear it from the horse’s mouth (aka Google itself).
Recent updates from Google and statements from industry experts reaffirm the continued relevance of sitemaps in SEO practices.
The takeaway? Sitemaps have proven themselves as a foundational element of any SEO strategy. They ensure complete indexing, improve all of your pages’ discoverability, and help your overall Google ranking.