When was the last time you audited/updated your careers site? Does it have relevant and interesting content to attract and generate interest in the job seeker to apply for jobs within your company? Is it easy for them to submit their job application on the go or does it take hours long?

If you haven’t thought of any of the above questions lately and if you think your careers site is just for listing down jobs, then you are wrong. As per Glassdoor, the top five pieces of information job seekers want employers to provide, as they research where to work, are: 1) Salary/compensation, 2) Benefits, 3) Basic company information, 4) What makes it an attractive place to work, 5) Company mission, vision, values. And 69% are likely to apply to a job if the employer actively manages its employer brand.

And careers site is at the heart of the employer branding efforts. Job seekers consider careers site as the top avenue to research data and decide if they are interested in working at your company or not. So if you don’t invest in your careers site then you might be missing out on your jobseekers.

Checking out the below elements and making sure all necessary components are executed will help you ensure that your careers site is fully optimized to attract the jobseekers and it has all the features and information that job seekers are looking for.

Here are the 12 elements to optimize your careers site and boost your employer brand.

1. Make it Easy to Locate Careers Site on Your Company Site

Highlight your careers site by having it as a separate tab on your homepage where it can be seen and is accessible easily. Adding it under different tabs like ‘About us’ or ‘others’ may make it harder for job seekers to search and find the careers site and might take 2-3 clicks to even search the jobs. But having it as a separate tab at the top of the homepage and even at the bottom of the homepage (this has been the norm) will make it easily available to everyone who are looking at both areas

2. Make it Mobile Friendly

With generation Gen Y and Gen Z’s representing the much larger population of today’s workforce and with them being more active users of mobile you might be missing out on a large population of job seekers if your careers site is not mobile optimized. Make it easy to apply and submit the job applications on the go and your application rates are guaranteed to improve. Some mobile careers site allow the job seekers to save the job that they are interested in and then later submit the job application from a desktop if they choose to do so.

3. A Compelling Headline

To create that first impression I would recommend adding a compelling headline that would attract job seekers and help them relate with why they should come work for you. I have seen that employers using this in various ways. At PWC, they showcased their employees with a message,’It starts with you’ that tells their audience about the support they will receive in developing their career if they choose to join PWC.

4. Showcase Your Culture by Adding Videos

Jobseekers are looking for an inside scoop of what it is like to work within a company. Adding a quick video (less than 60 seconds), that provides a glimpse of your company culture, can be one of the highlights of your careers site. If you don’t have the budget to hire a fancy recruitment marketing team to produce high-quality videos, I would say use your iPhone and iMovie app and start working on it. I really like how Zappos highlighted their employees by adding videos of their employees' testimonials on their careers site under the header ‘Meet Our Zapponians’.

5. Replace Stock Photos with Your Employees' Pictures

This is a place where you can really be authentic, use your employees pictures, showcase diversity and do not use any stock photos that doesn’t represent your company. Your employees will feel empowered to be the ambassadors on your careers site and you don’t really need to spend money on stock photos. You can go creative here by highlighting employees talent or skills outside of their job or showcase their cultural backgrounds or something that they are passionate about. I really like how Atlassian has showcased their employees.

6. Show Off Your Glassdoor Reviews

61% of Glassdoor users report that they seek company reviews and ratings before making a decision to apply for a job. Adding a tab that takes your job seekers to your Glassdoor review page or showcasing some of the Glassdoor reviews on your careers page will help job seekers go through some of the feedback and better help them to make a decision. Southwest Airlines showcased their CEO rating as well along with a link that takes their job seekers to their Glassdoor review page.

7. Add Your Hashtag Aggregator

If you would like to showcase real-time news from your employees and provide updates to your jobseeker, adding a hashtag aggregator would be a great choice. If you have an employer branding hashtag of your own (Example: SAP’s employer branding hashtag is @LifeatSAP) or hashtag of your #1 campaigns then it will be a great opportunity for you to showcase employees stories and real-time updates from your Twitter or Instagram account using these hashtags.

8. How to Stay Connected

Give a clear call to action on what needs to done if your job seekers don’t find a suitable job opening on your careers site. Should they join your talent community or sign up for a job alert. Give proper direction and that way you will be able to engage with the talent and nurture them.

Eventbrite has added a “Keep in Touch” tab that takes their job seekers to join their talent community.

9. Links to Social Media Pages

Often I have seen companies miss adding their social media pages to their careers sites. If you have employer branding social media pages i would recommend adding those to your careers site. If you don’t have one yet then adding your company’s consumer brand social media pages will also help your job seekers to stay in tune and learn more about you.

10. Make Social Sharing a Priority

Make it easy to share jobs. You have all the great things yet if you don’t have it to set up to share your jobs easily via email or on social media then your audience and even your recruiters won’t be able to share your jobs to their network. Add tabs “Share this job” and have at least connected to the main platforms like email, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, like the example below.

11. List Out the Competitive Benefits You Offer

This is not an elaborative benefits section but basically listing out the competitive benefits that you offer and having them out there will help the job seekers compare it with their current employer and make a decision if it’s worth making a move. For example, a job seeker who is new parent and doesn’t have child care support available in his current company is very likely to be interested in for e.g., the CA Montessori Program

12. Add a Company Blog

If you have the resources to come up with content and diligently work on your employer branding initiatives then adding a company blog can help take your employer branding efforts to the next level. Have a content calendar, reach out to employees, share their stories and testimonials to help your job seekers relate to you and your organization. Check out Inside.Lever, Life at Cisco, Deloitte Careers blog to name a few.

Nisha Raghavan is the Talent Attraction and Employer Branding Specialist at the American Heart Association. Prior to this, she worked in the telecommunications and media industry to help attract, engage and retain talent. She writes about her Global HR experiences at her blog Your HR Buddy!! Connect with her on LinkedIn and on Twitter at @TheHrbuddy