Did you know the global job board market is estimated to reach $22.7 billion by 2028? That represents incredible money-making potential for website owners like you.
And the good news is creating an automated job board with WordPress is simple if you use the right plugin.
In this detailed guide, I‘ll show you step-by-step how to setup a job board that works on autopilot…with no HTML or coding required on your part.
Just follow along with the walkthrough below, and you‘ll have your own job site ready start generating revenue in no time.
Why Create Your Own Job Board?
Beyond making money, here are 5 key reasons I recommend creating a job board:
1. Captive Audience
Industry statistics show that 87% of job seekers use online job boards in their search process. So you already have a massive captive audience looking for work.
2. Revenue Potential
Top sites easily generate 6 figures per year from posting fees alone. Smaller niche sites can make $xx,xxx without much effort.
3. Authority and Trust
A job board establishes you as an authority in your field that employers trust. 75% of candidates focus their search on industry-specific boards.
4.Valuable Service
You help connect qualified people to meaningful work. This provides immense value to job seekers, companies, and the overall economy.
5. Passive Income
After the initial setup, your job board can practically run itself with minimal maintenance while money rolls in automatically.
Clearly, there are phenomenal benefits provided by a well-executed online job board.
Now let’s dive into step-by-step how to create one with WordPress…
WordPress Job Board Plugins Comparison
When building a job board, you could custom code everything from scratch. But that takes lots of time, effort and maintenance.
A much smarter approach is using an existing job board WordPress plugin that handles most of the functionality automatically.
There are a handful of decent options to consider:
| Plugin | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| WP Job Manager | Easiest setup, Great features, Many add-ons available | Some limitations for large boards |
| JobRoller | Excellent large board support, Powerful paid features | Steep learning curve, Developer focused |
| Jobify | Top-notch support & documentation | Expensive (from $199), Overkill for most |
After extensive testing, I recommend WP Job Manager as the best free WordPress job board plugin for most website owners because of its simplicity and robust core feature set. The available paid add-ons like Simple Paid Listings make monetization easy as well.
Now let‘s see this plugin in action…
Getting Started: What You‘ll Need
To build your WordPress-powered job board, you‘ll need:
Web Hosting & Domain – I highly recommend Bluehost, an official WordPress recommended hosting provider. Their low pricing makes launching your job board affordable.
WordPress Installed – With Bluehost, WordPress installation takes only a few clicks. But if you need it, here‘s how to install WordPress manually.
WP Job Manager Plugin – This plugin will do the heavy lifting of creating your job board‘s backend infrastructure and frontend user interfaces.
Step 1: Get Web Hosting & Install WordPress
First, you‘ll want to register your domain name and setup hosting.
While any host will work, I suggest Bluehost because their pricing can‘t be beat at just $2.75 per month for shared hosting. Plus their user-friendly dash makes installing WordPress simple.
Once your account is setup, you‘ll see an option to instantly install WordPress with 1-click:
Run through their automated WordPress installation process. Within 5 minutes, you‘ll have WP fully installed and ready to go. Pretty easy right?
Now we can move onto plugin installation and configuration…
Step 2: Install WP Job Manager
This official plugin will transform your new WordPress site into a working job board.
From your admin area, go to Plugins > Add New. Then search for "WP Job Manager" and install the plugin by Mike Jolley.
Once activated, the plugin will automatically create special pages and tools to manage job listings. We‘ll take look at these next.
Step 3: Add Required Pages
Every job board needs a few key pages that WP Job Manager handles automatically:
- Job Listings – Main public listings page
- Submit Job – Frontend form for adding new jobs
- Job Dashboard – Admin area to manage your own listings
The plugin takes care of these for you. But you‘ll want to review the pages to customize and tweak as needed for your brand.
You can access and edit them by going to Job Listings > Pages in your WP dashboard.
With the basics now setup, we need to configure our board…
Customizing Plugin Settings
One of the best things about WP Job Manager is that you can deeply customize nearly all aspects of your board without coding.
Let‘s explore some of the most important settings to review located at Job Listings > Settings:
General Settings
Here you can set site-wide defaults like:
✅ Currency options
✅ Google Maps API key
✅ What data to keep if you uninstall the plugin
Job Listings Settings
This tab controls major parts of your public job listings:
✅ Google Maps integration
✅ Social media sharing
✅ Expiration rules
✅ Related jobs
Set them up to align with your vision for interactions and behavior.
Submissions Settings
Adjust requirements and restrictions for new job submissions:
✅ Require admin approval first
✅ Limit number of listings per company
✅ New account creation options
Email Notifications
Keep employers and admins in the loop with:
✅ New listing alerts
✅ Reminders for expirations
✅ Updates about status changes
Note that new capabilities and options become available when adding paid listing functionality…
Charging Employers to Post Jobs
Once your job board is running smoothly, it‘s time look at generating revenue!
The easiest way is charging employers a small posting fee like $100 per 60 days.
To add paid listings, install the Simple Paid Listings add-on.
Activate it, then navigate to Job Listings > Paid Listings to setup your payment gateway. You can use Stripe, PayPal, or others.
With the plugin active, navigate to Job Listings > Add New to create a paid job posting. You‘ll see new boxes for defining cost and duration as shown below:
Set your paid listing prices based on industry and niche. Research suggests:
| Industry | Avg Price |
|---|---|
| Technology | $299 per post |
| Healthcare | $199 per post |
| General Labor | $99 per post |
Low competition niche sites can start at $75 per 60 days. Adjust up or down according to demand and perceived value.
With paid capabilities activated, now let‘s look at…
Promoting Your Job Board
You‘ve created an incredible free job board powered by WordPress. Pat yourself on the back!
But without visitors and job listings, it won‘t survive for long.
Here are proven promotion tactics used by top job boards:
1. Content Marketing
Publish regular advice articles for job seekers and HR pros. Link back to your board.
2. Email Outreach
Contact employers directly pitching posting jobs. Offer discounts to anchor companies.
3. Job Aggregation
Aggregate listings from public sources like Indeed as seed data until organic posts pick up.
4. SEO Optimization
Research relevant queries around your niche and location. Target them to drive organic search traffic.
Execute on those 4 areas starting today to rapidly grow your new WordPress job board!
Recap To Review
Let‘s recap the key steps we covered for getting a job board online quickly with WordPress:
- Get hosting and install WordPress
- Choose and install WP Job Manager plugin
- Setup pages like Jobs, Submit Job, Dashboard
- Configure plugin settings to your preferences
- Add paid listings capabilities
- Promote your board to attract jobs and visitors
And that‘s it!
You now have a complete automated job board generated with WordPress, requiring no HTML or coding on your part.
Simply tweak the board over time to perfect it as you build up assets and revenue!
I hope this guide to easily creating a WordPress job board saves you tons research and testing. Just follow along with the steps above, and you‘ll be up and running quickly.
Let me know if you have any other questions!
