Use cases · HR and recruitment
Link building for recruitment agencies and HR
A recruitment agency sells to two audiences at once: the companies hiring and the people looking for work. HR software vendors sell to one, and it isn't the job seeker. Links have to be planned for each.
Two sides of the same agency
Candidate searches ("accounts assistant jobs Leeds") are owned by job boards and aggregators, and Google surfaces listings directly in its jobs experience. An agency with 40 live roles isn't going to beat a board with 40,000. We'd spend almost nothing trying.
Client searches are different. A finance director searching "interim finance recruitment Manchester" or an HR lead searching "how much does a retained search cost" sees a page of agencies, guides and directories, and a specialist agency with a solid page and a few relevant links can rank there. That's the side that pays the fees, so it probably deserves most of the budget. Specialist candidate searches sit in between: "salary for a band 6 nurse in London" or "contract rates for SAP consultants" are winnable if you publish real data.
HR tech vendors (ATS, payroll, HRIS, engagement tools) are a separate case. They're B2B software companies buying for HR directors and finance teams, and most of our SaaS link building advice applies, with HR trade press swapped in.
Job ads are the wrong target
Most agency sites are mostly job pages, and most of those disappear within weeks. Google's job posting guidance says expired postings should be removed, return a 404 or 410, or be marked expired. A link to a job ad is a link to a page with a short life. Why pay for that?
Build and link to pages that last instead:
| Page | Audience | Anchor style |
|---|---|---|
| Specialism plus location ("accountancy recruitment in Leeds") | Clients | Brand, brand + specialism |
| Annual salary guide | Clients and candidates | Citation style: "its 2026 salary guide" |
| Hiring guides (notice periods, interim versus permanent, fee models) | Clients | Descriptive: "how retained search fees work" |
| Career and interview guides for one profession | Candidates | Descriptive, generic |
| Homepage | Both | Brand and URL |
Exact-match anchors like "recruitment agency Manchester" should be rare. They read like a directory, not an article. Our anchor text guide has the longer argument.
Publications and formats that work
On the client side: HR and people management trade press, regional business news and business titles, sector trade press for the industry you recruit into (construction, life sciences, legal, tech), and small business publications for SME hiring advice. On the candidate side: career advice sections, graduate careers sites and professional body newsletters.
The best format, by a distance in our view, is a salary guide built on your own placement data. Journalists cite it in pay stories all year and AI answers lift its figures. Second is expert commentary on labour market data; the ONS publishes its labour market overview monthly, and a director who can explain what it means for one sector and one region gets quoted. Hiring intention surveys of your clients come third.
Guest posts with genuinely useful hiring advice, AI Optimized Articles that answer "retained or contingency" type questions, and press releases for office openings and acquisitions all have a place. Timing: January is traditionally busy for job seekers, so "new year, new job" content belongs there; client-side hiring content works best when budgets are being set.
Running it in Rankticker
Filter the marketplace by business, careers or HR categories, country United Kingdom and language English. DR 35 and above with real traffic is a sensible floor for business titles; a sector trade site with DR 25 can still be the right pick if your clients read it. Check topical overlap on the publisher profile before price.
Create a campaign with the objective that matches the side you're working on. For client-side work we'd pick "Improve backlink profile"; for salary and pay questions, "Improve AI visibility" makes more sense, because that's where people now ask. Set target URLs, anchors, geo and a max cost per link, then choose Auto or Semi-auto.
Example campaign (illustrative only): a specialist accountancy recruiter in Manchester and Leeds. Objective "Improve backlink profile"; monthly budget £1,800; geo United Kingdom; niche business and finance; target URLs the two specialism-plus-city pages and the 2026 salary guide; anchors brand, "accountancy recruitment in Leeds", "its 2026 salary guide"; max cost per link £300; Semi-auto, with a second small campaign for AI visibility around salary prompts.
Tracking and AI visibility
Measure recruitment links against client enquiries as well as rankings. The orders list shows each placement's stage and link health, and the project overview ties live links to spend. Our guide to measuring link building ROI covers how to connect that to pipeline.
Hiring managers and candidates both ask AI assistants about pay: "average salary for a management accountant in Manchester", "day rate for an interim CFO", "best recruiters for life sciences in Cambridge". Answers cite salary guides, HR trade press and official statistics. If your guide isn't on the sites those answers cite, a competitor's figures get quoted instead. The AIO Performance tab tracks those prompts and lists the publications AI models cite in your niche.
Rules that apply
If a sponsored article advertises specific roles, regulation 27 of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 applies: the advert must give the agency's full name and say whether each position is temporary or permanent, and pay rates come with requirements of their own. Paid placements must be identifiable as marketing, and Google asks for paid links to use rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow". You choose the attribute when you order; see our note on paid links.
Recruitment and HR checklist
- Separate plans for client-side and candidate-side searches
- No job ads as target URLs
- Specialism-plus-location pages built for each office
- An annual salary guide from your own placement data
- A spokesperson ready on ONS labour market release days
- Sector trade press for the industries you recruit into
- Regulation 27 details included in any sponsored job advert
FAQ
Questions about recruitment agency link building
Should recruitment agency backlinks point at job listings?
No. Job ads expire, and Google's job posting guidelines say expired postings should be removed, return a 404 or 410, or be clearly marked as expired. Point links at specialism, location and salary guide pages that stay live.
Can a recruitment agency outrank job boards?
For broad candidate searches, rarely. Agencies win on client-side searches such as "finance recruitment agency Manchester" and on specialist candidate searches where they have real expertise and a salary guide to back it up.
What is the best link-earning asset for a recruiter?
A salary guide built from your own placement data, updated every year. Business and HR journalists cite them, and so do AI answers about pay.
Do employment agency advertising rules apply to sponsored articles?
If the article advertises positions, yes. The Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 require adverts to give the agency's full name and say whether each role is temporary or permanent.
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