Citation-friendly pages
MISSINGZero of 21 fetched URLs match best-of, comparison, alternatives, review or pricing patterns. The site is all service and job pages, which answer engines rarely cite.
Your site ranks for 213 searches today. Here's where to push next, and the 42k+ more searches you could be capturing.
Ten of the highest-volume terms you rank for are all 2,900/mo variations of "construction recruitment agency", every one of them points at the homepage, and every one sits at position 12 to 20.
LJB & Co. runs construction and engineering recruitment out of the UK with 35+ years behind it, placing permanent and temp staff across the UK, Ireland, Europe and the UAE.
The site splits cleanly for two audiences: candidates chasing data centre, life sciences, civils, M&E and fit-out roles, and main contractors and subcontractors trying to fill project teams. There are 21 pages, a sector page for each vertical, a jobs board with 1,100+ listings, and almost no editorial content beyond it.
The painful part is concentration.
One page is trying to win ten separate SERPs and losing all of them by two or three spots. Rankings are also down 38.4% over the last six months.
Splitting that homepage cluster into dedicated pages (agency, London, sector, salary) is worth roughly $4,000/mo in equivalent ad spend before you publish a single new article.
8 structural issues.
LJB is a 35-year-old agency running a job-board site shape with no editorial layer. Of 500 sitemap URLs scanned, 469 are job or job-listing pages, and there is no /blog/, /guides/ or /resources/ bucket. Rankings reflect that: 213 ranked keywords total, and within the top-213 head sample only 25 sit on page 1 against 134 at position 21 or worse. Estimated traffic value on that sample is about 827, which for a business placing permanent staff on data centre and pharma projects is close to nothing.
The strengths are real. Sector pages (data centres, life sciences, civils, M&E, fit out, general contracting) carry 1,300 to 1,900 words each with FAQ blocks, titles and meta descriptions are individually written on most templates, and sitemap freshness is excellent: all 500 entries carry a lastmod and the newest is 3 days old. Technically it is clean, with 0 noindex pages and 0 missing or cross-domain canonicals.
The problem is not hygiene. It is that almost every commercial page is invisible. The homepage holds 121 of the ranked keywords while /specialist-sectors, /construction-recruitment-services-employers, /register-cv, /register-a-vacancy, /about-ljb, /contact and /our-team hold zero between them. One URL is doing the work of the whole site, and it is stuck at positions 11 to 15 on the terms that pay.
All 21 fetched pages, including the privacy policy, cookies page, contact page, employer services page and all six sector pages, carry the identical H1 "Let's Get You Hired...". The H1 is the strongest on-page signal of what a page is about. When it never changes, Google has no heading-level evidence that /data-centres-recruitment is about data centre recruitment or that /construction-recruitment-services-employers is an employer-side service page. That is the most likely single reason six sector pages with 1,300 to 1,900 words of specific content return zero to one ranked keyword each while the homepage absorbs 121.
1. Change the H1 on every template so it states the page subject, for example "Data Centre Construction Recruitment, UK and Europe" on /data-centres-recruitment.
2. Move "Let's Get You Hired..." into a styled tagline element that is not a heading tag.
3. On employer-facing pages (/construction-recruitment-services-employers, /register-a-vacancy) use a hiring-side H1 such as "Hire Construction and Engineering Staff".
4. Audit that each page has exactly one H1 matching its title tag intent.
5. Re-request indexing for the six sector pages plus the two conversion pages once shipped.
The offer matrix is blunt. The homepage alone accounts for 121 ranked keywords. Every commercial conversion page returns zero: /specialist-sectors (1 page, 0 keywords), /construction-recruitment-services-employers (1 page, 0), /register-cv (1 page, 0), /register-a-vacancy (1 page, 0). /ljb-recruitment-candidates has one. The business sells two things, employers hiring and candidates registering, and neither page is visible in search. Every head term resolves to the homepage, so a hiring manager searching "construction recruitment services" lands on a candidate-first page headed "Let's Get You Hired..." instead of the employer service page.
1. Rewrite /construction-recruitment-services-employers around employer-intent queries (construction recruitment services, hire construction staff UK) with a matching H1 and title.
2. Give /specialist-sectors a real hub role: unique intro copy, links to all six sector pages, header and footer links in.
3. Point internal anchor text currently pushing employer terms at the homepage toward the employer page instead.
4. Add body content to /register-cv and /register-a-vacancy so they are more than a form (what happens next, timelines, sectors covered).
5. Track ranked keywords per URL prefix monthly; treat any commercial page still at zero after 90 days as a rebuild candidate.
Forty keywords sit in striking distance (positions 4 to 15), and the highest-value cluster is tight: "construction recruiting firms" (pos 12), "construction industry recruitment agency" (pos 13), "builder recruitment agency" (pos 14), "construction recruitment firms" (pos 14), "employment agencies for construction" (pos 15), each at 2,900 searches a month, plus "construction recruitment agencies in london" (pos 11) and "recruitment construction agency london" (pos 13) at 1,300 a month. Every one resolves to the homepage. These are near-synonym commercial queries where the top of page 1 is worth many multiples of position 12.
1. Build a dedicated /construction-recruitment-agency-london page targeting the two London terms so the homepage is not the only candidate.
2. Publish four to six supporting pieces per head cluster (hiring guides, salary benchmarks, contract vs permanent) and link them into the homepage and the London page with varied anchors.
3. Expand the homepage body beyond 1,433 words with a services and sectors section using the exact query variants as subheads.
4. Rewrite the homepage title, currently 124 characters and truncating in the SERP, to lead with the primary term.
5. Re-check positions at 30 and 60 days and reallocate internal links toward whichever page is closest.
The sitemap is 469 job URLs out of 500 scanned: 274 under /job/ producing 30 ranked keywords and 195 under /jobs/ producing 55. That is roughly one ranked keyword per nine job pages. Individual vacancy pages are thin and short-lived: they duplicate agency boilerplate, they are near-identical to the same listing on the aggregators, and they go stale the moment the role is filled. Google devalues thin templated pages at scale, and a domain where 94 percent of indexable URLs are low-value listings gets judged on that ratio.
1. Pull the non-indexed URL list from Search Console and confirm how many /job/ pages Google has actually kept.
2. Return 410 on expired vacancies and remove them from the sitemap the day a role closes.
3. Keep /jobs/ category and location pages indexable (they hold the 55 ranked keywords) and consider noindexing individual /job/ detail pages carrying only boilerplate plus a spec.
4. Enrich surviving /jobs/ filter pages with 200 to 300 words of unique sector and location context each.
5. Rebalance internal links so sector and employer pages are linked from every job page, not the reverse.
There is no /blog/, /guides/, /resources/ or /learn/ bucket anywhere in the 500-URL sitemap scan. The editorial surface is job listings plus nine static pages. Against Indeed (895,359 ranked keywords, 284,299 referring domains) and Reed (265,615), a nine-page domain has no route to compete on volume and no informational surface to earn links with. Every link the site does earn lands on the homepage or a listing, which is part of why the homepage does all the ranking. Our keyword work surfaced 30 opportunities across pillars like construction jobs, construction recruitment and m&e jobs, 18 of them pillar-layer terms needing a supporting page each.
1. Create /insights/ (or /guides/) as a real section with its own hub page, linked from the primary navigation.
2. Ship six salary guides first, one per sector already covered by an existing sector page, cross-linked in both directions.
3. Follow with employer hiring guides aimed at main contractors and subcontractors, targeting the employer-side pillar terms.
4. Add candidate CV and interview prep pieces for site and MEP staff, linking to /register-cv.
5. Publish on a fixed cadence, interlinking each new piece to one sector page and one conversion page.
The fetched sample shows the homepage at https://ljbrecruit.com/ while all 20 other pages resolve at https://www.ljbrecruit.com/. Canonicals came back clean (0 missing, 0 cross-domain), so index signals are not currently split, but a site serving its most valuable URL on a different hostname from the rest is one misconfiguration away from doing exactly that. Mixed-host internal linking also wastes a redirect hop on every crawl of the homepage and dilutes how equity from external referrals consolidates. Since the homepage carries 121 of the site's ranked keywords, it is the single URL least able to absorb an accidental split.
1. Pick one canonical hostname (www, given 20 of 21 pages already use it) and 301 the other permanently at the server or CDN level.
2. Update every internal link, sitemap entry and canonical tag to the chosen host.
3. Verify both www and apex properties in Search Console and confirm the redirect resolves in one hop.
4. Update external profile links (job boards, directories, social) to the canonical host.
One title is shared across multiple URLs and one meta description likewise. /our-team and /terms-and-conditions both serve the homepage's 124-character title ("Construction Jobs Ireland, UK & Europe | Construction & Engineering Recruitment Experts...") and its 251-character meta description. That title is already well over the roughly 60-character display limit, so it truncates on all three URLs, and duplicate title and description pairs signal to Google that the pages are interchangeable. /our-team is the page that should carry the expertise and experience signals a 35-year-old agency has earned.
1. Write a unique title and meta description for /our-team focused on the consultants and their sector specialisms.
2. Write a unique title and meta for /terms-and-conditions.
3. Shorten the homepage title to roughly 60 characters, leading with the primary commercial term.
4. Add Organization and Person markup to /our-team so consultant credentials are machine-readable.
5. Sweep the remaining templates for any other page inheriting the homepage defaults.
Across the 21 pages that returned HTTP 200, only 15 percent of images carry alt text. On a recruitment site those images are project photography, client logos and team headshots, all context Google cannot otherwise read. Missing alt text costs image-search visibility on sector queries and removes a supporting relevance signal on exactly the pages currently ranking for nothing. It is also an accessibility gap that matters commercially, since public-sector and framework contractors increasingly ask about WCAG conformance during supplier onboarding. This is cleanup rather than a growth lever, but it is cheap and it compounds alongside the sector-page work above.
1. Audit all images on the nine static pages and the six sector pages first.
2. Write descriptive alt text naming the sector, role or project shown, not the filename.
3. Add client and contractor names to the alt text on the "Trusted by Leading Contractors" logo strips.
4. Make alt text a required field in the CMS upload flow so new job and sector images cannot ship without it.
3 pages analysed for AI-writing patterns.
Scored 51/100 across 3 pages. The writing has some shape but several tells per page (17 flagged) suggest AI assistance without an editor's pass. Cleanup is straightforward, not a rewrite.
“Take full ownership of electrical package delivery on a large scale data centre”
"Take full ownership of" is stock LLM job-ad phrasing used to inflate a routine duty.
“driving programme, sequencing, and coordination of all site activities”
Rule-of-three noun list, the default LLM cadence for padding a responsibility line.
“holding them accountable to safety, quality, and productivity targets”
Second rule-of-three list in an adjacent bullet; the repeated triplet rhythm is machine-generated structure.
“championing a “right first time” culture across the project”
"Championing a X culture" is corporate LLM filler that states no actual duty.
“ensure seamless integration of systems, resolving clashes and keeping the programme moving at pace”
"Seamless integration" plus "moving at pace" stack two stock phrases in one clause.
“Play a key role in the commissioning phase”
Vacuous stock opener; every LLM-written job spec has a "play a key role" bullet.
“We are pleased to announce that we are currently seeking an experienced Electrical Construction Manager”
Over-formal announcement opener with redundant hedging ("currently seeking"), a standard generated-copy tic.
“digital infrastructure programmes—a landmark £10bn hyperscale data centre campus in Blyth”
An unedited em dash used as a clause separator where a colon or comma would read naturally in human-written job copy.
“Spanning more than a decade, this flagship development will redefine digital infrastructure in the UK.”
Grandiose filler sentence with no concrete information. Classic LLM scene-setting line.
“Our client is a leading international main contractor specialising in the delivery of hyperscale data centres”
Stacked marketing superlatives ('leading international', 'delivery of') are stock model phrasing for describing an employer.
“one of Europe's most prestigious mission-critical developments, while building a long-term career with a world-class international contractor”
Superlative stacking in one clause ('most prestigious', 'world-class', 'international') is a strong LLM close-out pattern.
“ensuring costs are effectively controlled while maintaining programme, quality and contractual performance”
Rule-of-three abstract nouns with a vague 'while maintaining' clause. Voiceless generated filler rather than a written requirement.
“you'll play a key role in managing the financial performance of complex Mechanical & Electrical packages”
'play a key role in' is boilerplate hedging that adds nothing over stating the responsibility directly.
“This is an excellent opportunity to lead the delivery of Building Management Systems”
Boilerplate recruitment opener that carries no information about the role beyond the title.
“delivered safely, on programme, and to the highest quality standards”
Rule-of-three closer ending in a generic quality claim. Classic filler cadence.
“Excellent long-term career progression.”
Unfalsifiable benefit line with no specifics, sitting among concrete items like accommodation and rotation.
“Lead the delivery of BMS and ELV packages from installation through to commissioning and handover.”
"BMS and ELV" plus "installation through to commissioning and handover" is repeated near-verbatim across three separate paragraphs.
38% of sampled rankings are non-branded. The rest is people searching the brand by name, which SEO doesn't need to win.
Already ranking close to page 1. These move first: a sharper title, a content refresh, a few internal links.
SERP FEATURES · 97 keywords show People Also Ask · 31 show AI Overviews
Rough equivalent ad spend based on current click prices. Directional, not an invoice.
Two or more of your own pages rank for the same term, splitting Google’s confidence. Pick one page per term; consolidate or de-optimize the rest.
Keywords where a competitor's specific page outranks yours, sorted by what the gap is worth. Each row is one page to build or upgrade.
NO PAGE = you have nothing ranking for that keyword at all
Over 65 characters. Google truncates titles past ~60-65 chars.
Multiple pages share the same title. Confuses SERP intent.
Under 120 characters. Wasting SERP real estate.
No structured data found. Missing rich-result eligibility (Article, FAQ, Product, etc.).
Based on the 21 pages that returned HTTP 200 out of 21 fetched. Not a full-site crawl.
Click depth and inlink counts are computed over the 21 pages we fetched, not a full crawl. Pages outside the sample are not represented in the graph.
Compared the first 21 sitemap URLs against the top-500 ranked-keyword URL set.
Classic rankings and AI citations are now separate games. This checks whether the site has pages and entity signals worth retrieving.
ljbrecruit.com already turns up in 31 AI Overview results, so retrieval isn't the problem. Format is. Not one of the 21 fetched pages is a best-of, comparison, alternatives or review page, which are the formats answer engines pull from most readily. The homepage entity signal is muddled too: the title states construction and engineering recruitment across four regions, but the H1 reads "Let's Get You Hired...", which tells a machine nothing about who you are. No Wikipedia entity and no video or off-site proof in the data.
Zero of 21 fetched URLs match best-of, comparison, alternatives, review or pricing patterns. The site is all service and job pages, which answer engines rarely cite.
Title and meta state category, regions and sectors clearly, but the H1 is a slogan and it repeats on all 21 pages, so no page asserts its own identity.
Pages run roughly 1,000 to 1,900 words but carry no salary bands, placement counts or dated market figures. The 1,100+ jobs figure on /jobs is the only hard number surfaced.
No video, directory or social entity signal appears in the audit data, and no Wikipedia entity was found. llms.txt is present, which is the one off-page signal already in place.
Present in 31 AI Overviews against 100 each for indeed.com, reed.co.uk and hays.co.uk. Ten queries show a competitor cited where ljbrecruit.com is absent.
No evidence of AI answer tracking. Cited sources shuffle week to week, so a monthly check on those ten competitor-only queries is the baseline you're missing.
Answer engines cite pages that state a fact plainly. Four site manager salary keywords totalling 2,340/mo sit at KD 0. Publish regional and role-level pay bands with a stated source and date, and you become the quotable source rather than another job board listing.
You have zero pages in the formats AI answers pull from. Pages like "best construction recruitment agencies in London" or "how to choose a construction recruitment agency", written honestly and including yourself on merit, are the standard route into cited answer sets.
All 21 pages share "Let's Get You Hired...". Retrieval systems lean on the H1 to decide what a page covers. Replacing it with the page's real subject is a one-day fix with disproportionate effect on both classic rankings and AI retrieval.
Highest-leverage first. Keywords with a ready article on top.
Three pillars carry the whole opportunity set: construction jobs (transactional, high volume, mostly KD 0), construction recruitment (commercial, where you already rank 11-20 and need pages to take load off the homepage), and M&E plus data centre roles (your real differentiator, near-zero competition). The pattern in the data is blunt: 18 of the 30 opportunities came from pillar expansion and 12 from audience intent, with zero from competitor gaps, which means nobody in your immediate SERP set has built the salary and geo content yet. Salary guides are the fastest lane. Four site manager salary variants total 2,340/mo at KD 0 and you have placement data no aggregator holds.
One keyword in, one published article out, every day. We'll ship against the 30-keyword list above.
REAL DATA ABOVE · 7 QUICK WINS, 10 ARTICLE IDEAS, 30 KEYWORDS FOR LJBRECRUIT