10 Tips To Optimize Your Staffing Website And Generate More Traffic
Having a good, informative, and professional website is extremely important, consider these statistics:
• Nearly 95% of prospects will check out your website BEFORE agreeing to a meeting with you.
• More than 90% of candidates will review a company’s website before applying for a job.
• One in four candidates will decide NOT to apply with a company because of their website.
However, even if you have the most sophisticated website in the staffing industry, it doesn’t matter if people can’t find it! That’s where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes in.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to your website from search engines like Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and hundreds of others. The goal of SEO is to improve the ranking of your staffing firm’s website when people search on specific keywords and phrases.
How can SEO help my staffing firm?
Let’s start by revisiting the statistics above. 95% of prospects will check out your website BEFORE meeting with you. What do you think happens if they can’t find your website? That’s right, goodbye meeting.
Likewise, 90% of candidates will review your website before applying. If they can’t easily find your website, they may instead register with one of your competitors.
With a solid SEO strategy, both your candidates and prospects will have a much easier time finding your website when searching on your company name and search phrases such as, “Jobs in [your city]” or “Staffing Agencies in [your city]“.
So where do I start?
Each search engine has a unique algorithm they use to determine where your website ranks in specific searches. While each search engine is a bit different, there are several best practices you can follow. Here are ten tips to help you get started:
1. Select your keyword phrases
The first step in an effective SEO strategy is to determine the keywords for which you will optimize your website. To help, ask yourself the following questions:
o What kind of staffing or recruitment do you do?
o What geographic area do you serve (and more importantly, how do people refer to it)?
o Is your main goal to drive candidate traffic or client and prospect traffic?
Build your initial keyword phrases around your answers to these questions. Start with the type of staffing you do (industrial, IT, medical, etc.) and then add in specific geographic areas (city/town names, regions, counties, etc.). Finally, don’t forget to add your company name to the list!
2. Make sure you have selected the right keyword phrases
In order to drive traffic to your website, you need to find out if people are actually searching on the keyword phrases you have selected. Google offers a free tool you can start with: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
There are also other paid tools, such as Wordtracker, that offer more robust reporting to help you determine the popularity of your keywords and also the competition for those keywords (this is one of the tools we use at Haley Marketing). The end goal is to find words that are both popular, and don’t have too much competition so you can quickly climb to the top of the rankings.
3. Update your meta data
Meta data is hidden code in your website that helps search engines determine what information your website provides. Here are three main elements of meta data you should start with:
o Page Title – In the top left corner of your web browser, you will see a page title. For most staffing firm websites, this is just the company name. However, you can update this to include keywords (but try to stay under a total of 8-9 words).
o Keywords – This is where your list of keywords is placed. Be sure to rank this list in order of importance and keep it between 15-25 words. The search engine takes this list into account when reviewing your website.
o Description – This short paragraph of text will display when your website is shown in search results and describes your website. You can include any description you would like so make sure to mix in relevant keywords.
4. Review and edit your copy
Every page within your website should have a strong headline that immediately tells the reader (and the search engine) what that page is about. Make sure your headlines are appropriate for that page and include relevant keywords.
Behind the scenes, each of those headlines should be setup as “Header Tags” in the code of your website. Header tags, or “h-tags”, tell the search engines what words are important in the context of your page. Using keywords in your headers helps improve your rankings.
5. Add valuable content to your website
Content is king! The more valuable content you have on your website, the higher your ranking. Write localized articles to help job seekers find jobs in your area. Discuss ways local companies can overcome business challenges. And be sure to mix in keywords throughout that content!
6. Create more inbound links to your website
When another website links to a page within your website, that is considered an inbound link. Creating more inbound links from relevant websites will help improve your SEO rankings. Here are just a few ideas on how to create inbound links:
o Make sure every job you post on sites like Monster or CareerBuilder has a link back to your website.
o Ask any associations you belong to (staffing associations, chambers of commerce, local business associations, etc.) to link to your website.
o Use your staffing and workforce expertise to write and submit articles to article directories such as: http://base.google.com, http://www.ezinearticles.com, and http://www.goarticles.com.
o Talk with your clients about reciprocal linking. Offer to place a link to their website on yours if they will do the same (you will both benefit).
7. Submit your website to the major search engines
The major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN), allow you to submit your website URL along with a short description for free. Take advantage of these free submissions. Also, Yahoo! and Google both have local business directories—make sure your company information is listed.
8. Create a site map and Google XML map
A site map is a page that shows how your website is structured, and offers links to every page in your website. An effective site map will help users and search engine robots (spiders) find all the important pages on your website. Google also prefers a specific format of sitemap called an XML map. If you don’t have one, add it!
9. Look at what your competitors are doing
Try searching on the specific keywords you have selected and see where you rank in relation to your competitors. If your competitors are ranked higher, take time to evaluate their website. Look at their meta data, analyze their copy, and review the content they have on their website. Then define areas in which you can improve.
10. (Warning—Sales Pitch Coming!) Call Haley Marketing Group
We are the only company that specializes in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) specifically for the staffing industry. We will help you develop a strong and targeted SEO strategy including necessary Copywriting and content development, website programming, and search engine submissions. Simply contact us at 888-696-2900 and we would be happy to answer any questions you might have and discuss an SEO plan that would be appropriate for your firm.
To discover more about Staffing Websites please visit websites/SEO copywriting/’ target=’_blank’>Staffing SEO
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