How to Attract Readers with Lists
December 9, 2008 by SEO for Recruiters Guy · Leave a Comment
Lists are a great way to bring traffic to your blog… but why do they work? Well, it is quite simple, people are impatient and they don’t want to waste time. When someone reads the title of your blog article they evaluate it very quickly to make a value assessment. First they look for a clear subject and test to see that it is a subject that would be of interest to them. If all your title includes is words that convey the subject of the article, then an important piece of information necessary for busy professionals to make a good judgment is missing; the length of the article or at least some indication of the length.
If you make your article title into a “list” style title, then it will quite naturally communicate the length or relative length of the article to people who might see the title in a list somewhere. Say for instance, you want to write a quick article about how to attract top flight candidates, if you title it: “An investigation into methods and practices which will yield a nominal increased in highly qualified candidates.” it is highly unlikely that anyone is going to click on the link… it sounds dry and LOOOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGG.
However, if you were to title it “5 Quick Ways to Get More Candidates” anyone seeing the title in a list will at the very least think that it must present a group of concise statements that will address attracting candidates. If that is a topic that is of interest to the person seeing the title, then likely you will get a visitor.
So my advice is to the recruiters out there reading this, keep lists at the top of your ‘list’ as a great way to title your blog posts.
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JBE 24 days of Christmas (presents) - Day 4 - The Big “No No” of SEO and How to NOT Get Burned
December 4, 2008 by SEO for Recruiters Guy · Leave a Comment
There are only two ways to have your website optimized so that it ranks well in search engines. The first way, you can do it yourself. It take lots of study and many hours of research to find out what your strategy should be before you even start the implementation of your SEO program. Then it takes a LOT of consistent and tedious effort and constant monitoring to measure results and implement improvement processes. Usually this isn’t a good investment of a recruiter’s time.
The second way is to hire someone or some firm to do the implementation for you. This is probably the methond that is chosen by most recruiters or recruiting firms who are enlightened enough to understand that the actually NEED search engine optimization. There are literally thousands of SEO companies, consultants, and experst who can perform SEO on your website for you. There are some that are good and their are some that are not so good. Then there are some who you should run away from as fast as you can.
The big “no no” of SEO for me is Blackhat SEO. Usually you can tell a vendor of the blackhat variety by how they talk to you about their service or what they say in their advertisements. If you see or hear something like “top 10 on Google guaranteed in 48 hours” or “top Google listings for keywords that you choose in 1 week” then you can be pretty sure these guys are only talking to you for one reason. They want to get into your wallet in a BIG way. These companies are the kind that will say and do anything to separate you from your hard earned cash. The job they do can be categorized into one of two categories - 1) Blackhat techniques or 2) completely worthless.
Blackhat SEO can yeild results, which for a very short time [usually long enough for you to pay the HUGE upfront fee for the SEO consultant], can indeed have your site ranking at the top of Google and the other major search engines. Trouble is that the results are temporary at best. At worst the practice can result in your website being REMOVED from the index altogether so that you don’t show up for ANY searches at all.
The other ‘results’ [and I use the term very loosely] that you may get from some of the nefarious vendors of ‘guaranteed’ search engine optimization programs are what I call ‘worthless.’ These results are actual high ranking of your site in the major search engines for keyword search terms that don’t receive any actual usage or searches. An example of such ‘result’ would be ranking highly for the term “concrete scuba tanks.“ I use this as an example because as an experiment, I bet a colleague that I could rank #1 on Google for a search term within 7 days. {here is my article on the SEO attaining #1 on Google} which I actually did in 6 days. The only trouble is for SEO to be effective the keywords that you rank highly for have to be actually used by people on the Internet. And I can guarantee that, other than the people who I have pointed to my article, NO ONE in the world is looking for concrete scuba tanks on the Internet… or anywhere else for that matter.
So here are the top three things that you should use to evaluate a potential vendore of SEO for your website:
- The SEO vendor should not offer an OUTRAGEOUS guarantee of performance
- The SEO consultant should be able to point you to successful websites they have optimized
- The search optimization company should be able to provide positive, glowing references
My number one rule for making the right pick is avoid at all costs the clowns who guarantee quick number 1 listings on Google - they’re crooks.
JBE 24 days of Christmas (presents) - Day 2 - Attract Candidates with Your Recruiting Website
December 2, 2008 by Custom Websites for Recruiters Guy · Leave a Comment
It seems simple enough when you read it “Attract Candidates with Your Recruiting Website” but why are their so many recruiters that don’t even think about it?
Many of the clients that we first start working with are in one of two camps [as I alluded to yesterday] - either they have no website at all or they have a website that is nothing more than an electronic business card. Neither does anything to attract candidates.
If you think about the recruiting process, the one that you go through hundreds of times monthly as you try to find a candidate to match your search assignment, it always involves a presentation of an opportunity. The presentation must be attractive, it must be interesting, and it must be of interest to the candidate because it is a match for his background and skill set. If you never make a presentation, all your “smiling and dialing” will accomplish is raising your phone bill.
It’s much the same with your recruiting website - you must make a presentation. The best way to utilize your recruiter website is to post jobs to it. That’s it. Post all of your jobs, and do it in a way that the job details and job title contain keywords that will match the words that candidates will most likely use to search the Internet when hunting for their next career position. When properly post your jobs with great keywords they will be indexed in search engines using something called ‘long-tail search engine optimization.’ What that means is your jobs won’t dominate search engine results for terms like ‘manager’ or ’sales manager’ but they will do extremely well when someone does a search like ‘Capital Equipment Sales into Clinical Lab - Toronto Canada.’ This leads to a great, often unexpected benefit. Instead of getting a bunch of plumbers. painters, and mechanics applying to your job titled ‘Sales’ when a candidate who searches for something as specific as the example above, you can bet that the candidate is as close to ‘pre-qualified’ as they can be.
“So“, you may be asking yourself, “how do I get my jobs posted to my website?” Heck some of you may be asking “How the heck do I get a website?” Well there are quite a number of ways for you to get a website and to get jobs posted to them. Tomorrow I’ll go into some detail about alternatives for getting a website setup for your recruiting agency. Right now I’ll give you some ideas on how to get jobs posted to your website.
- Use an ATS or recruiting software package that has job post integration with websites as a feature. This could be problematic as it could mean that change of your recruiting software if your current vendor’s product doesn’t have the feature, and sometimes, despite Obamaniacs, change is not good. There are a couple that I’m personally familiar with that do a pretty good job of post jobs and allowing for candidate applications - Big Biller and MaxHire. I have friends that use both, the Medical Sales Recruiter uses Big Biller (you can see the integration here) and GLI/Grimes Legal, Inc. uses MaxHire (you can see the integration here).
- Buy job board software and install it on your domain. This option may require a commitment to a larger technology and knowledge budget than you may desire. If you try to do it yourself, chances are it will cost you more than having someone do it for you. If you bring someone in or add someone to staff, the cost will likely become prohibitive.
- Have someone build you a website and custom program the job posting function. Really expensive and not recommended.
- Use a service that provides websites and job posting software as a turnkey service. I’m not aware of very many of these companies. There is a company called Attract HR that charges about $10k up front and about $1000 per month for hosting, maintenance, and SEO for the recruiter website. The service provided by us here at the Job Board Engine comes in varying levels, the least expensive of which provides members with 5 custom websites with unlimited job postings for $300 setup fee and $150 per month which includes hosting and maintenance and search engine optimization.
So whatever you choose, make sure that you are posting jobs on your website. It will attract candidates who can turn into placements. You only need one placement to more than pay for all of the costs associated with setting up, maintaining, and using the your recruiter website. Actually, depending upon your particular market niche and average fees, one placement generated by your recruiter website with jobs posted to it might pay for two, three, or more years of website related costs.
Happy Thanksgiving!
November 27, 2008 by Recruiter Tools Guy · Leave a Comment
From all of us at the Job Board Engine to all of you, have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!
If you haven’t checked it out before, here is a link to a GREAT recipe for cooking the perfect turkey.
Enjoy. Go Cowboys!
LAUNCHED - Recruiting Tool that Promises More Placements
October 28, 2008 by Recruiter Tools Guy · Leave a Comment
Yesterday was an exciting day for us here. We launched the Job Board Engine service after months of hard work. We will have lots of great content being added to our membership site as time goes on.
For now, we would like to thank those who have helped promote our service, have given of their time and resources, and have helped to mold and shape the website and its functionality.
Special thanks to Peggy McKee, the Medical Sales Recruiter, and Dave Mendoza from SixDegrees.
Stay Tuned!