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With so many types of jobs out there, the possibilities for niche job boards are almost endless. Drawing in traffic shouldn’t prove to be too difficult either because, after being populated with niche-specific job listings, your job board will be filled with a wide variety of targeted keywords. Once these job seekers arrive at your niche job board they should transition into repeat traffic since they will be able to easily peruse job listings that are appropriate to the skills that they posses. That will remove much of the hassle that job seekers suffer as they seek employment.

FoxNews and Smashing Magazine are two users of the JobPress theme who have zeroed in on a niche for their job boards. FoxNews only covers positions available within their own company while Smashing Magazine provides job listings primarily targeted toward those seeking design and programming-related jobs.

So, as you can see, opting to focus on a niche will put you and your job board in good company.

The previous screenshots of the FoxNews and Smashing Magazine job boards will give you some idea of just what you can do with this theme. As you can see, JobPress can be integrated into the design of an existing website so that the two blend together nicely.

In this article, you will learn how to:

• Build a dedicated job board website
• Make the JobPress sidebar widget-ready
• Run JobPress alongside an existing web site

Once this project is complete, you will have succeeded in creating a site that’s similar to the one shown in the following screenshot:

Introducing JobPress

JobPress, which can be found at http://www.dailywp.com/jobpress-wordpresstheme/, took the inspiration for its features from several of the job boards already in existence on the Internet. As you would expect, the theme offers those building a job board site the ability to edit and customize various features using a theme-related settings screen. This one screen houses all of the settings specific to this theme, so the customization of JobPress and its features can be completed in record time.

If you’re looking to earn a profit from your job board, then you have two options. You can either include advertisements in their various forms or you can charge a fee in order to post a job listing. If you would like to go with the latter option, then you can simply enter your PayPal information into the appropriate settings area and JobPress and PayPal will take care of the rest. JobPress also includes a feature whereby payment is verified between PayPal and JobPress, so that you can always be sure that the job listings that appear on your website have, in fact, been paid for.

JobPress makes the job hunt easier for your visitors by allowing them to use the FREELANCE, FULL TIME, and PART TIME tags to sort listings. These sort options are available on both the front page and within categories to make locating a suitable job as easy as possible. If job seekers want to search for a specific job, instead of browsing, then they can do that too by using the search box provided by JobPress.

JobPress also includes a feature that will alert job seekers when a listing has been online for more than 30 days. That way they will be able to see which listings are fresh and which ones are likely to have already been filled by another applicant.

Running a job board isn’t just about pleasing the job seekers who come to your site looking for listings. It’s also about catering to the desires of those who will be placing ads. After all, without them your job board won’t contain any job listings which means that there will be nothing there to draw in visitors. The developer behind JobPress took that into consideration when designing this theme by making the job listing submission process virtually hassle-free.

Setting up and configuring JobPress

After uploading and activating the JobPress theme, a new JobPress Settings link will appear. From this screen, all of your JobPress settings can be configured. So, to begin customizing JobPress to your liking, click on JobPress Settings.

The Publishing & Payment Settings area is the first section that you will need to concentrate on during this configuration process. The Auto Publish? setting allows you to publish job listings automatically or manually. This setting is currently set to On, but you may switch it to Off if you prefer to have more control over the ads that appear on your website. The Paid Submission? setting is currently enabled. If you would like to charge a fee for placing a job listing, then this setting shouldn’t be changed. Otherwise, change it to Disable to offer job listing placements for free.

If you’ve decided to offer job listing placements for free, then proceed to the Custom Information settings area. If, you’ve instead opted to charge for the placement of job listings, then you will need to configure the remaining settings found in the Publishing & Payment Settings area. First, enter the email address associated with your PayPal account into the PayPal Mail textbox. In the Submission Price textbox, enter the amount that you would like to charge for standard ad placements. The last setting in this area is the Currency drop-down menu. Here you need to choose the currency associated with your area of the world.

The Custom Information section of this settings screen is next and Renew Jobs is the first option that you will see. This feature is currently set to Enabled which means that job posters will be able to renew their listings if they would like to do so. This setting can be left at its default or you can, instead, set it to Disable if you would rather not provide a renewal option. It’s best, however, for ease of use, if this setting remains enabled.

The Apply Online option is also set to Enabled and it’s probably best if this is left as is so that your job board offers the highest level of convenience to job seekers. With this setting in place visitors to your job board will be able to apply online for the jobs that they’re interested in.

The Sociable setting is also currently enabled, which is ideal since this will provide your visitors with a way to share a job listing that they see on your site with someone who might be interested in applying.

Featured Job is next and, like all of the proceeding settings, it’s also enabled. If you want to provide job posters with the option of upgrading from a standard listing to one that’s featured, then this setting should remain enabled. If, however, you would rather not offer featured job listings on your website, then change this setting to Disable. If you opted to leave this setting enabled, then enter the price that you plan to charge for featured job listings into the Submission Featured Job Price textbox.

Now, in the Items Per Page textbox, enter the number of job listings that you would like to appear on a single page.

In the Success Message text area you will find a pre-written message that’s displayed on the confirmation page when a job listing is submitted. It’s best if you rewrite this message to correct grammar issues and to add any additional information that you would like to provide.

Success Mail is next and this setting contains a few different options that must be addressed. First, you must choose whether you would like to leave this feature set to Enabled or, instead, set it to Disable.

If you would like to use this feature, then you will first need to heed the advice included below the drop-down menu which advises you to contact your web host before enabling this setting. When you contact your web host you will need to ask them to if the mail() function is activated because the Success Mail feature won’t work if that function isn’t enabled. If the mail() function isn’t enabled, then you should next ask your web host to activate it on your account. If they’re unable to do so, then you will have no choice other than to set Success Mail to Disable.

If you would like to use this feature, then you will first need to heed the advice included below the drop-down menu which advises you to contact your web host before enabling this setting. When you contact your web host you will need to ask them to if the mail() function is activated because the Success Mail feature won’t work if that function isn’t enabled. If the mail() function isn’t enabled, then you should next ask your web host to activate it on your account. If they’re unable to do so, then you will have no choice other than to set Success Mail to Disable.

If it was possible for your web host to enable the mail() function, and you set Success Mail to Enabled, you must next deal with the Subject textbox. The default text provided in this textbox is certainly sufficient, but you might want to add the name of your job board to the subject line. That way recipients will be able to easily identify that the message that they’re receiving isn’t spam. The message within the Content text area is fine as is, but you may certainly rewrite it if you like. If you do decide to create your own message, then be sure to include the tags provided by JobPress for usage in this area so that this unique information can be populated before the message is sent. The From textbox that follows should be left at its default. Now, click Save to finalize your changes.

Companies submitting job listings to your site will have the ability to include their company logo along with their submission. This feature won’t function properly, unless you change the permissions on the upload folder, which can be found inside the wp-content directory. So, navigate to the upload folder and then CHMOD it to 777.