SEO for Career Professionals: Optimize Your Posts and Raise Your Profile

SEO for Career Professionals

You are an experienced and knowledgeable career professional. Why not share that knowledge by learning and applying Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques to optimize your blog posts? As a side benefit, your professional profile will be elevated. SEO for career professionals is easy to master. This article answers some common questions you may have and introduces foundational concepts so that you can start to write online posts in a way that will help you be recognized as the expert you are!

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. According to top web marketer Neil Patel, “SEO is the process of taking steps to help a website or piece of content rank higher on Google.”

What this means for you as a career professional is that you can write blog posts and online articles that appear high on the list of Google search results. By incorporating some basic SEO principles into your articles, you can feature your expertise, increase your visibility on the internet, attract the right people as clients and network connections, and raise your profile.

Why should I write online articles?

Writing articles online, and employing SEO for career professionals, will help you to become known for your expertise and valued within our profession. By getting your article featured on a site like CPC, you will:

  • Learn and grow: You will increase your own learning on the topic you are writing about. As you perform research for your article, you will learn about emerging areas related to your subject matter.
  • Share your knowledge: Your online articles and blog posts will help your colleagues get better at what they do. You’ll become a role model who influences and advances our profession.
  • Build your professional network: People will start to reach out to you. They will learn about you and your strengths, and think of you when professional opportunities come up.
  • Enhance your bio: As a published author, you will strengthen your professional profile. You will be able to cite examples of your work in your résumé to demonstrate your subject matter expertise. You will become the “go to” person when people want an expert!

Why should I write for an “authority” site?

An “authority” site is a very high-quality website that is respected by knowledgeable people in our profession. These websites typically rank high in Google searches and their content is highly visible. When you post content on an authority site, you increase your chances of being acknowledged as a thought leader and subject matter expert.

Articles and posts from authority sites appear at the top of Google’s organic search results. Sometimes the content shows up as a “feature snippit” paragraph right at the top of the search page.

In early 2021, SEO specialist Michelle Bourbonniere audited Career Professionals of Canada’s website. One of the most exciting things we learned is that CPC is a high-ranking site with strong visibility to career professionals, employers, clients, and the media. Because CPC is an authority site in Canada and within our profession, by writing articles on this news post feed, you can increase your name recognition and brand.

Who is the “audience” for my posts?

CPC’s audience primarily consists of career professionals and their employers, but many other users also visit the site. So, if you are writing a feature article for CPC’s website, you want to target it toward our audience. CPC’s member portal offers you a range of topic ideas under the following broad themes:

  • Career Development
  • Work-Life Coaching
  • Interview Coaching
  • Employment Consulting
  • Résumé Strategy

When deciding what to write about, always align your topic with your education, experience, and area(s) of expertise. Write leading-edge and informational content, ensuring that the subject of your feature article “speaks” directly to our national audience of career professionals (as opposed to their job-seeking clients). To attract their interest, you need to keep their needs in mind. Only include information that will be of interest to them. To draw readers into your post, keep your style, length, and use of language at a level that is appropriate for them.

What are “backlinks” and why are they important?

When you blog on a site like CPC, which has a high domain authority within our profession, you can benefit from including backlinks in your article. Backlinks are links that travel from a website to another website. For example, you might incorporate a link within your CPC post to your own website or online profile pages. By doing this, your own website ranking increases. You can even include backlinks in your post which send readers to your own social media and CPC profile.

What are “search terms” and why should I use them?

Search terms are keywords or phrases that people type into Google to find what they are looking for. To optimize your posts, include combinations of words that career professionals might search in Google. By incorporating the right keywords, you can help Google recommend your content to people you want to read your post. Using appropriate keywords in your writing ensures that your content will appear high on the list of results returned when your targeted audience performs a search.

Here’s how it works: When someone types a search term like “Canadian career certification” into Google, they are probably looking for information on how to get certified. If you write an article about the certifications that are available in the Canadian career development sector, and sprinkle it with targeted keywords and phrases, your article might appear near the top of the user’s Google search results. By crafting an article that ranks high on the list of results, you will help the practitioner find good information on a topic that is important to them. You are also showing the reader of your post that you know a lot about certifications in our sector.

Search terms related to career development are appropriate for CPC’s site. Place the most important keywords and key phrases in headlines, sub-headlines, body content, image tags, and links. While it’s important to include your keyword as many times as necessary, don’t overdo it. When writing, always consider readability. Speak in your own voice, maintain a consistent point of view, and choose words that are familiar and natural to you and your potential readers. Now you’re getting the hang of SEO for career professionals!

Yes, you can write an SEO optimized article and raise your profile!

At CPC, we value your experience and perspective. You are a subject matter expert and we want to learn from you. We want to help you write online posts. To do that, we’ve developed a list of career development topics and created three templates for three different types of articles, which you can download and use. You can also see filled-in examples of each of the three templates, along with a link to the final articles.

Are you ready to give it a try? Log in and access our templates on the CPC member site. Download a template that you feel comfortable using and write your first CPC post.

We would love to feature you in Career Professionals of Canada’s News Feed!

Sharon Graham is founder and executive director of Career Professionals of Canada. Committed to setting the standard for excellence in the career development profession, Sharon has authored top selling paperback publications and textbooks, and has established a range of certification, professional development, community development, mentoring, and award programs. As executive director of CPC, she provides foresight and leadership within the sector and ensures that the mandate of this national organization is upheld with integrity.

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