I have been running The JobsBoard for a few years, and I am continuously looking for ways to increase the traffic to my site. As a small business, I do not have huge budgets or teams of experts and developers. I am learning about this as I go and making it happen.
Let me take you with me.
I want my site to rank higher for “job boards in the UK”. There are many other terms it would be good to rank higher for, but let’s start with one.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of guides on how to rank your site higher in Google searches. If you are new to this, it can overwhelm you, and the jargon and technical terms can leave you baffled.
Let’s break down what you are trying to achieve and what Google and other search engines are looking for. I am not a qualified web professional, so I may get some things wrong, but I think the basics will help. When you use a search engine, you are asking for help: “What is the best…”, “Who did what, when…?” or “What jobs are there near me?” Search engines then do their best to answer your question.
The better your website, the higher you will appear in those searches. The higher you are in the search, the more likely you are to get traffic – somebody clicking on the site and seeing what you do.
This basic idea is your starting point: Better. Higher. More.
How do I Make My Site Better?
Get some baselines to see where you are now. Page Speed, Search Console, Web Authority and Nibbler.
Page Speed.
A well-built website should be quick, but it can be let down by large graphics, pictures, or videos trying to load.
Use https://pagespeed.web.dev/ - enter your site’s domain, and you will get results for desktop and mobile applications. As most of the site traffic is now on mobiles, these results are most important. Improvements you make here will also improve your desktop results.
Since 08-2024, I have improved my page speed performance from 68 to 97! This means that looking at www.thejobsboard.co.uk on your mobile will be a much better experience for the user. This has been achieved by removing some large graphics and a carousel that looked great but took forever to load.
If your site loads slowly, Google will mark it down!
Don’t worry about changing everything on the first day. Identify, understand and improve the pages bit by bit. The benefits will come.
Google Search Console
You must be the registered website owner to access this information. Search Console will tell you the number of clicks your site is getting and the average position your pages are achieving. These numbers may be terrible to begin with – don’t be disheartened!
Run the number every couple of weeks and record how you are doing.
The JobsBoard’s average rank position in August 2024 was a low of 31.5. That's way down there. By January 2025, it was up to 13.9! There is still plenty of scope for improvement, but I am making progress so far in my goal to rank higher for “job boards in the UK”.
This site gives a wide range of helpful feedback on whether your site is SSL, whether your images are optimised, and whether you have Alt text, such as whether you have broken links and things like Click to Contact. Again, don’t be overwhelmed. The process of improving a website is a marathon, not a sprint. Look at one part, learn about it and making the changes.
Web Authority - Ahrefs
https://ahrefs.com/website-authority-checker/ will tell you the level of authority your site has. The major sites like BBC, Amazon, etc have very high authority 85 – 95. Your site may be in single figures, but over a period of making improvements and adding high-quality backlinks, your authority and, therefore, your traffic will improve.
Nibbler and Ahrefs offer basic reports and then paid-for versions, which give you more detail and advice on improvements. You can decide how much you want to invest.
There are many other valuable resources to improve your website, and you will find those that work well for you. You can ask your web developer for help or use the services of a third-party web analyst if the whole process is too time-consuming or makes no sense at all!
Where Next?
So, where am I going next with my target to improve my ranking for “job boards in the UK”? I am continuing to tweak things to improve speed and working on more high-quality backlinks to improve www.thejobsboard.co.uk ‘s Domain Authority. Plus, lots more.
The last twelve months have been a fascinating journey of discovery, and there is still so much more to learn. I will keep you in the loop of what I am trying and what is working.
