When setting out to create the content for your Skills Portal such as those developed by SignedUp Skills it’s key to consider what your potential portal visitors want to know, or what they are searching for.

We know that they are often searching for job vacancies, how to get a job, the support to get a job, or maybe they are looking for apprenticeships or training courses, or don’t know that’s an option for them but know they need SOMETHING to help them move forward along their career path.

Focus groups and talking to key stakeholders can give you some really helpful insights, but as it’s said, people ask search engines such as Google things that they wouldn’t even ask their best friend or family!

In that case, we turn to online analysis to see what people are really searching for to help us develop a content plan, for both main pages and blog posts (or news articles) and to help get your portal found in search results such as Google.

If we take the search term ‘Get a Job’ as an example, we can find out all sorts of questions asked, and create content to answer those questions.

Here’s some frequently asked questions relating to the term ‘Get a Job’:

  • How to get a job without experience
  • How to get a job in a bank
  • Can’t get a job because of anxiety
  • Can’t get a job because of COVID
  • Why get a job in digital marketing
  • Why get a job in healthcare
  • Will I get a job astrology – this may not be a topic you want to cover on your portal, but it’s really important to know that people are using this search term and in high volumes, so that you can include sentences such as ‘don’t rely on what your stars say, there’s opportunities out there!’
  • Who can get a job in government
  • When will I get a job
  • When to get a job after college
  • Will I get a job soon
  • Where to get a job right now
  • Where to get a job during COVID

We can then start to look for other things that people want to know relating to Get a Job, to help you develop content within your main pages. Here’s some of the popular searches:

  • How to get a job and interview. So now you need to think about adding CV advice to the portal
  • Get a job or start a business. So now you can add links off to your local growth hub, or better still, ask them to create some content for your portal)
  • Get a job and lose unemployment benefit. So now you can see that people are weighing up where they will be better off, and can create content to that effect.
  • Get a job or go to college. So now you can start to introduce local training providers and the courses that available locally

Finally, we can take a look at the longer keywords by alphabetical order to see if there’s anything relevant that you can create content for, in order to answer the most popular questions, and draw people to your portal. Here’s some examples that relate to Get a Job:

  • How to get a job at 16
  • Get a job ASAP
  • Get a job before you move
  • Get a job covid testing
  • Get a job driving
  • Get a job easy
  • Get a job fast
  • Get a job in government
  • Get a job kit
  • Get a job, keep a job
  • Get a job now
  • Get a job near me
  • Get a job for offspring
  • Get a job own a business
  • Get a job parents guide

There are hundreds of other questions that people ask Google too related to this search, but I wanted to give you some examples, as not only does it help to create your content for your portal, but it also gives you some real time labour market information (look at the questions relating to digital marketing and healthcare, 2 sectors that often present many work opportunities)

Performing this analysis regularly will give you real time insights too. Right now, in August 2021, most of the searches relate to not being able to get a job after college or how to get a job without experience. This would be a great opportunity to position content around Kickstart Placements and to use some of the terms mentioned above within that content. It gives you great content to share on social media, and hook visitors to come to your site, and explore the opportunities available.

The analysis also presents an opportunity to examine your user journey. People simply don’t know what they don’t know, and if they don’t know where to start, your portal needs to take them on a journey.

The temptation to put everything on one page to show how many opportunities and how much support is available is HUGE! But this can be really overwhelming to someone who has been looking for work for a while. Breaking the journey down into bite size chunks stops the overwhelm. We use our minimum commitment strategy for this, as asking someone to click on an Apply For A Job button when they don’t even know where to start is simply too much.

Interested in finding out more?

A 15 minute conversation with us to discuss your output goals and how digital marketing will help you to achieve those output goals costs you nothing!

Simply call our friendly team on 01245 791969 or drop us an email to [email protected] to arrange a confidential chat.

The Social Accelerators, founded by Caroline Thomas in 2010 advises clients around the UK on strategic marketing of your public sector funded programme or portal.

Her firm designs and runs digital marketing campaigns that get the results you need across social media, websites and email campaigns.