How this recruiting software wins BIG in SEO

Remember the good old times, when you would Google something and find exactly what you’re looking for?

The March algorithm update is obliterating websites to remove unhelpful content but it seems it’s also removing a big portion of content users are ACTUALLY searching for.

But there are some huge sites that are chilling and don’t care much about what’s going on.

Today, we’re looking into Workable, a company that’s pretty much unphased by the March update.

How?

• They’ve built a foundation good enough to survive any bullshit algorithm update.

• They provide more value than any Reddit thread can

• They give users even more than what they were looking for

In this analysis, I’ll take a look at the content, technical setup, CTAs and pretty much anything I personally find interesting.

You’ll get a deep dive into why I think each part of their strategy works, and why it generates estimated 2,2M organic visitors per month.

Results we see today

Total # of pages for the whole domain: 116,399
Total traffic for the whole domain: 2,2 million visitors/month

If we take out everything else and focus only on resources.workable.com, we’re left with:

Total content pages: 6899
Total traffic for content pages: 2,03 million visitors/month
Percentage of traffic: 90.3%

Job descriptions - 1,2 million visitors per month

They published 1213 pages providing specific job descriptions for roles such as customer service representative, accountant, sales representative, receptionist, cashier, waiter/waitress, office administrator, operations manager, sales executive, and many more.

Top 5 pages:

HR Terms - 190k visitors per month

This is pretty much a glossary of HR terms, covering top of the funnel content like definitions of terms, examples and types of certain HR terms.

What’s impressive is the fact they have only 65 posts in this glossary and it generates 190k visitors per month.

Top 5 terms:

Templates, guides and tutorials - 531k visitors per month

These 3 types of content combined add up to 1609 published pages. Through these, Workable teaches visitors how to write a certain document they need as either employer or an employee.

Top 5 templates & guides:

Strategy breakdown

Keywords

One aspect that stands out immediately is Workable's approach to keyword targeting. They're not just throwing darts in the dark… they're laser focused.

Their choice of topics and terms, particularly in the job descriptions and guides is spot on.

This isn't luck - it's long-term game and strategy at its best.

By focusing on high-volume, relevant keywords with a clear intent, they've positioned themselves as the go-to resource for anyone looking for HR resources.

Let’s take the “letter of recommendation template” page as an example. Looking at the content and keyword optimization, here are my findings:

Title: The main keyword is used in the title.

First Paragraph: The keyword appears in the introductory section.

Throughout the text: Exact keyword + variations used naturally throughout the article, while avoiding stuffing.

Sample letters: Giving the users exactly what the keyword describes. They searched for the exact keyword and got the letter instantly.

Readability: The article is well structured with clear headings, bullet points, and short paragraphs, making it easy to read and scan while looking for the resource they came for (letter of recommendation).

Internal linking: The article mentions additional resources but doesn't seem to heavily emphasize internal linking to related topics.

Technical setup

It's clear that Workable hasn’t overlooked the importance of user experience and has carefully planned their site structure.

I’ve managed to freely and clearly navigate through the website, used categories and their intuitive navigation menu, and easily found resources I was looking for.

There’s no doubt other users (and search engine crawlers) can easily find what they're looking for. Big G loves that, and obviously favors them.

One thing that stood out is the fact their Core Web Vitals are terrible. Seems like they don’t care much about it - and it doesn’t really affect them much 🤷‍♂️

If eel like if shit ever hit the fan and traffic went down (I see no reason for this to happen), they’d actually get into CWV and fix this. Until then, they’ll probably keep ignoring it.

Content quality

Here’s a hard pill to swallow. Among all the trash AI content out there, Workable’s content quality really stands out.

Their content isn't just fluff, t's packed with value, insight, and actionable advice. Most of the time, it also includes:

• a downloadable resource

• great internal links to other resources

• actionable advice

• real-life examples

• expert advice & quotes

• exactly what the users came for, without paywall or signup

This commitment to quality and depth contributes to higher dwell times, lower bounce rates, and overall, a stronger trust signal to search engines.

You already know this is a cycle… great content attracts more visitors, which signals to search engines that this is a resource worth ranking highly. Then, this content gets natural links which accumulate over time.

I’d love to get some input from the Workable team, but I’m 100% sure none of these links were proactively built:

This page gets 112.8k visitors a month alone, and has only 36 referring domains, out of which 2 come from respectable sites, and the rest is kind of trash 😂 

Backlinks

It's a safe bet that Workable’s content got a good percentage of natural links over the years. Their high-quality, informative content naturally attracts links from other sites.

This external validation not only boosts individual page rankings but also elevates the domain's overall authority, contributing to its resilience against algorithm updates.

Social proof and community engagement

Remember the page breakdown in the beginning of the post?

6% of all Workable’s pages generate 90.3% of all traffic.

So what about the rest? What are all the other 110k pages if we don’t count content?

They’re job postings. And what do job postings GUARANTEE a website like this? Social shares!

Workable’s job posts encourage shares and discussions across social media platforms and professional networks.

This engagement not only extends their reach but also builds a community around their brand.

Search engines take cues from social signals and engagement levels. They’re good indicators of content relevance and popularity.