Last week the news broke that WayUP a college focused job site had acquired Looksharp, one of it’s competitors in the college recruiting sector. That news is good news for all job boards but there is another aspect of the deal that deserves attention. WayUp bought Looksharp mainly because of it’s SEO rankings. According to WayUp’s CEO Liz Wessell;
We’re adding more users, more customers, and better SEO rankings! When we first met Looksharp, the synergy was undeniable. Both WayUp and Looksharp had the same mission to help college students land jobs in a much more efficient way than ever before. So, what is most exciting about this is that we now are adding 2M more users to the WayUp community (which already represents over 5,200 schools), and we’re also going to be able to take advantage of Looksharp’s impressive SEO strategy and placements. While WayUp already has a million of its profiles often show up at the top of Google results (for example:https://goo.gl/G6mOXp), Looksharp has been able to do this with many other relevant job-searches.
I’d like to compliment WayUp on their foresight. Acquiring other websites that have good search engine ranking is an excellent way to boost your own by either doing a 301 redirect or by populating the acquired site with your own job listings. It’s a proven strategy that works.
Many new job board owners fail to do enough when it comes to SEO. You need to have an SEO friendly site PLUS create great content AND get backlinks on an ongoing basis. Then you have to wait to bake inside the Google oven. Time is SEO’s best friend. The Looksharp deal should help boost the acquisition prospects for any job board that currently enjoys good SEO rankings. Free search engine traffic is a valuable thing these days.
SEO is back!
