Case Study · Specialist Staffing
SEO Case Study: Specialist Staffing Company | Sitewide Pageviews Grew About 4×
A specialist staffing company in Japan was not getting enough job applications from its own website. This case covers the Japanese keyword strategy, page planning, content quality work and implementation direction behind the change.
Overview
What the project covered.
Industry
Specialist staffing company.
Challenge
Job applications from the company website were not growing. Previous SEO work with an external web production partner had not produced meaningful results.
Support
Clarified the business and candidate-facing strengths, developed the Japanese keyword strategy and page plan, improved content quality with AI-assisted workflows, and organized implementation instructions and review points for the production partner.
Outcome
A new page reached #3 for a target search query. Comparing equivalent periods before and after the work, sitewide pageviews were about 4× higher and total applications were about 1.7× higher.
01 · Challenge
Rankings were flat, and the real problem was unclear.
The client is a staffing company specializing in a professional field.
As recruitment and job applications increasingly moved online, the company was struggling to generate more applications through its own website. That made it difficult to build a reliable way to reach new candidates through search.
The internal team had been adding information to the site and working with an external web production partner on SEO. However, rankings were not improving, and it was unclear what the real problem was or what should be fixed first.
02 · What we did
From scattered SEO effort to a defined Japanese search plan.
After reviewing the situation, I proposed and supported the following improvements.
Clarified the business and candidate-facing strengths
Clarified what the company offered, why candidates would choose it, and which Japanese search themes were most closely connected to those strengths.
Designed Japanese keywords and page roles
Reviewed the live Japanese SERPs for the proposed queries and identified pages and information that were missing from the site.
For each priority page, I defined what role it should play and what information it needed to contain.
Used generative AI to improve content quality
Generative AI was not used to mass-produce articles. Instead, I designed a workflow that used AI as editorial support for tasks such as improving information precision, readability, and content quality.
I also supported the internal content team in using AI more consistently as part of the production process.
Organized implementation instructions for the web production partner
For pages that required production work, I organized the changes, SEO intent, and review points that needed to be communicated to the external web team.
This helped reduce ambiguity between SEO planning and implementation.
03 · Results
From outside the top 30 to #3 for a target query.
Before the changes, the target search query ranked outside the top 30. It later improved to #3.
Comparing equivalent periods before and after the work, sitewide pageviews were about 4× higher, while total applications were about 1.7× higher.
These figures describe what happened across the site over the same comparison period, and are not presented as the effect of SEO alone.
This kind of work sits inside my broader Japan SEO support for global companies.
04 · What happened next
The next constraint moved from search to operations.
After the initial improvements, the next challenge was operational: how to handle the higher volume of applicants more efficiently and turn more of them into successful hires.
I continued to advise on internal priorities and process improvements after the initial SEO gains.
Need help with a similar Japan SEO problem?
Not sure what to fix first?
If rankings are stuck, your site already has pages but they are not producing enough traffic or applications, or your web production partner needs clearer SEO priorities, you can send me the site and the current situation.
I can help identify what should be fixed first for the Japanese search market.