In a job market where there are plenty of candidates, a recruitment firm needs to make sure their online marketing targets clients. With the job market changing, and most firms starting to go direct through services like LinkedIn, there has never been a more important time to make sure you are maximising the leads generated through your website. Firstly, there are three things you should do with your website to make sure you are going to convert, before you start looking at SEO or online marketing
- Make sure you have a page just for client companies that shows off how you are different. Talking about experience is a good thing, but also talking about some of the processes you go through to find the right candidate can help too.
- Make sure you have testimonials and links to client websites already there. Some companies worry about competitors stealing their clients, but really you should expect your competitors to be looking to do this anyway, having a few client links isn’t going to change that fact.
- Focus on one niche, or one geographical area. In our experience websites that focus on one or two core areas convert at a far higher rate than just “Sydney Recruitment Agency”. This will also give you your keywords that you can use to target with your SEO.
When you start looking at SEO you need to know the difference between keywords that clients will use, and keywords that candidates will use. Candidates look for “IT Jobs Sydney” where as clients will use words like “North Sydney Technology Recruitment Agency”. Using a mix of the long and the short keywords will net you both, but make sure you focus your content on the words that the clients will use.
- The first step in Recruitment SEO is getting your website in order. Your client landing page should use your target keywords in the title and in the body of the page. When using it in the body of the page you should be looking at wrapping the keywords in H1 and <b> tags.
- Make sure you encourage people to share your jobs on twitter and Facebook. Most modern websites have some sort of a plugin that you can make this happen.
- If you are using a jobs board, make sure that the jobs posted there can be indexed and are included in your sitemap. The best way to check this is to copy a section of the job description and paste it into Google. If your job shows up, then they are being indexed.
- If you have a jobs board, then there is a chance you can syndicate your jobs out to websites like indeed.com, jobsgator.com etc. They usually only take the first paragraph of a job, before linking back to your website.
- Every modern website should have a blog. You should use this tool to write about changes to the landscape of your industry. This will show that you know your market, but it will also give you a chance to target longer tail keywords, and generate internal links to your clients page. The best content for your blog is if you can report in overall changes to the jobs market in your industry, or if there have been any significant changes to the number of clients/candidates you have.
- Link partners. Use a service link linkmarket.net, and find other recruitment firms to exchange links with. Link exchange is the first step to generating links to your site. As long as you do it with other recruitment firms across the globe, there is nothing wrong with that.
- Guest blogging. A few years ago article websites were the best way to generate a volume of links back to your site. Now, guest blogging is better. Article submission is on the wane because Google has started to remove the value of links from sites with a lot of duplicate content. There are a few ways to get Guest blogging gigs. The best way is to look for recruitment media that have a blog. Most blogs will be happy to take comment and content from someone who has experience in the industry. When you guest blog, this will give you a chance to get your name out there, and to have a profile page on another website that can link to yours.
- Find recruitment directories. There are some directories that are worth listing in, and there are others that are not. The best way to tell the difference is to search for recruitment agencies in your area. If a directory comes up, then it is probably worth looking at. You are looking for the ones that will allow you to have a logo and a link back to your website. Some industry associations have a directory, which is usually worth investigating.
- Sponsor local events. Find and host local events worth talking about. Sponsor a local office footy team. This will get people talking, and generate links back to your website. It will advertise your business to your target market, and it will generate buzz, which is an important part of SEO.
