Building an audience and generating traffic

Your job board can suck, be ugly, and sit in a brutally competitive niche. But if you can pull in a steady stream of qualified traffic, it'll still make money.

Getting traffic matters — I don't need to tell you that. The real question is: where does that traffic come from? And how do you turn it into revenue (paid job postings), job seeker sign-ups, job alert subscriptions, and newsletter opt-ins?

After running two successful job boards over the past five years, I can tell you there's a bit of "black magic" involved. What I mean is, it's not always 100% clear why companies decide to post paid jobs, or why job seekers decide to apply or sign up on your board.

That said, it all comes down to one thing: you need to build an audience.

That starts with nailing down the one keyword that sums up your job board in a nutshell.

For Sustainablejobs.nl, that keyword was "Sustainable Jobs" (or "Duurzame Vacatures" in Dutch). That single term became the anchor for the entire strategy. The homepage was built around it. The first pages and content pieces were built around it. And the first LinkedIn and social posts were all about finding sustainable jobs.

So here's the first question you need to answer:

What keyword sums up my job board?

Say you're running a job board for the construction industry — your keyword might be "Construction Jobs."

Why does this matter?

Because this keyword is your starting point for research. Head over to Google, ChatGPT, Reddit, Claude, and Bing, and type it in. See what sites pop up. Check out what roles they list. Look at their content. Study their approach. See what you can learn about their target audience while you're at it.