Tips for a Successful Recruitment Agency Website

If the website of your recruitment agency has been in existence for some time but is not getting much traffic, something could be wrong.

Recruitment is very competitive space, especially on Google, so it is essential for your recruitment website to be as productive as possible. 

Your goal? Get to that first page!

Intertwined closely with search engine optimisation, is the branding, or personality of your business, both on and off line. If your recruitment website is not generating activity, you may need to analyse what you’re “saying” to people - why are they not engaging with you?

Search engine optimisation and online branding is not easy and there is no one size fits all answer, but it is important to work out what matches your business objectives.

#1: The design is outdated

If your recruitment website design has not been changed for a number of years, you may need to either update or get a new website. Some views are that styles can become outdated within a mere two years.

Not only do looks count, but the design will determine the amount of traffic you get. For instance, in 2014, people who access the Internet on mobile devices, overtook those who go online via a desktop. In response, Google changed its behaviour on 21^st April 2015 and websites who are not mobile friendly will no longer show up in search results when users search via mobile.

If your recruitment website is outdated, it probably isn’t mobile friendly, which means you’re missing out on traffic and not delivering an optimised user experience.

It’s also entirely possible that your entire website is not search engine friendly, which means it won’t be listed anywhere close to the first search page, and the consequence of this is again, minimal traffic if any at all.

#2: Your header isn't effective

The thing is, your website has about eight seconds to grab a visitor’s attention. If it doesn’t, well, why should they stay? Having clear calls to action that convey the correct messages and any appropriate sign posting are essential.

Your tagline, or header, is the first element to be seen when people land on your website. It has a major job, and most recruitment agencies treat it as something that just has to be there.

#3: The content is all about you

This has got to be one of most common problems online, and is not limited solely to the recruitment agency: making the website all about you, your business, your business’s needs, your business's desires.

But your website should be completely focused on your audience, because that is what gets their attention. They don’t care about your organisational charts. They don’t care about your mission. They only care about how you can help them achieve their goals, which in recruitment is helping the candidate find their ideal job or demonstrate to that client that you are the company to work with.

Be brutal. Go check your website as if you were your client. Ask yourself, “Will knowing this make me want to join forces with this recruitment agency?” You’ll find that possibly most of the content on your site is focused on your business, not on the goals of your readers.

The reason why this is important is because you want readers to stay sticky on your site, because it’s good for your search ranking (the longer people stay on your site, the more it helps you rank higher in searches).

#4: There’s no call to action

Every page on your website should encourage action... they’ve come to visit, so what action do you want them to take?

A call to action is a final instruction for your visitor. For recruitment websites, the core focus should be getting a candidate to register and upload their CV. The ability for the candidate to set up job alerts also helps demonstrate to them the value of registering with your site.

#5: You don’t have a blog

Blogging is the hottest form of online marketing. In fact, it’s called “content marketing”, because it’s a way of selling without selling.

In fact, websites that include a blog have about 434% more indexed pages. Put plainly, those websites stand a far better chance of being on the first pages of search results, which means more traffic for them.

The fact is, that the only way to improve your search ranking, is by adding regular and fresh content to your site, and blogging helps accomplish this.

Another common problem with the recruitment agency who blogs - other industries are just as guilty - is that the content is poor. It adds no value whatsoever for your audience.

The reason for this is:

• A lack of understanding about your target audience, so you don’t write according to their needs and desires.
• Poor writing skills.
• Learn more about how to get blog traffic.