Your recruitment website is the shop window for your brand as well as your recruitment agency, and with job board prices on the rise, it is more important than ever to attract candidates directly. With some small improvements, you can turn your website into a magnet for top talent whilst also building your brand.
Here’s how you can improve your recruitment website going into 2023 and get ahead of your competitors!
Create an easy candidate journey
For candidates reaching your website, it is important to make the journey and application process as easy as possible. This may be your first point of contact with a candidate and has the potential to make the relationship a difficult one (or a smooth one!) before you have even picked up the phone.
Having a place for your candidates to log in is essential - this may be best suited on your navigation menu at the top of your site. Don’t forget to also include a button where candidates can register if they haven’t already. This makes it easy for them to look for updates and any new roles that pop up. If your website is linked to your CRM (which would make your life a lot easier!) they will also be able to access their candidate portal with ease.
Having a few featured jobs on your home page is another great way to improve your candidates’ journey - as well as your own application rates.
Create a high-converting Jobs Page
Once your candidate journey has led to your Jobs Page, you need to ensure that the application process is smooth and easy to follow. Nobody wants to be directed to 10 different pages just to apply for a role!
You can easily avoid this by customising your registration form. This means you can add questions for diversity and equality monitoring, request references, and ask for compliance information – all in one place. It will also look a lot more professional, trust me!
Another thing you could do is have candidates set their own marketing preferences - meaning they can opt-in to receive job alerts and email campaigns. This is vital for engaging with candidates further down the line and finding some of the talent in your own database when times get tougher!
Finally, make sure your jobs are structured correctly to be picked up by Google for jobs. This will ensure that you receive more traffic on vacancies and attract more candidates to your site.
Make use of your content pages
Did you know that 75% of candidates research company culture before applying for a role? This is a clear sign that the priorities are shifting – and apart from good pay, people want to be respected and appreciated at their place of work. So, beyond using your website to attract more applications, it is also a crucial tool for building your brand. Making use of a meet the team page and linking this to your live vacancies is a great way to help your recruiters outline their recruitment specialisms and experience to prospects and to potential candidates. And, of course, showcasing your amazing company culture!
You can also start your very own blog - this is a great tool to get your brand out there and get more traffic coming to your website (and paint yourself as an expert in the field in the meantime!). Use your recruitment experience to write some short blogs on interview advice, insights into the current state of the market, or any other tips and tricks you can give candidates and clients.
Having a consistent blog is a great way to show your expertise in the market and promote your personal or agency brand, especially when shared out on social media.
Don’t underestimate the power of SEO
Ensuring that your recruitment website SEO is optimised is crucial for attracting candidates organically and reducing your cost-per-placement. It's even more important when you take into account that more than 75% of web searchers don't click past the first page of results.
SEO has a range of moving parts and it's easy to get lost in the technicalities of page load analysis, backlinks, on-page copy, and so on. However, we've buibuiltrecruitment-specific web grader to help you analyse your current SEO position and provide you with some quick actionable tips on how to improve SEO across your recruitment website.
Here are a few to get you started:
Sharpen your meta descriptions. Meta descriptions are descriptions of your page and should provide a brief oversight for search engines. These should be a maximum length of 148 characters, contain 1/2 relevant keywords, and always be related to your on-page copy and page title.
Optimise your page titles and headings: Like your meta descriptions, your page titles should be relevant to your on-page copy, providing search engines with further proof of what the page contains. BUT don't go cramming keywords into your page titles just to have them in there - recently, Google started rewarding quality over quantity for all things SEO and will see right through it!
Serve images in next-gen formats: Images are a great way to bring your page to life and, let's be honest, nobody has launched a text-only website since the 1990s. However, large image files will slow your page load time and punish your organic rankings. To ensure optimum performance, all on-page images should be in WEBP. format - you'll be able to convert them using any free JPG/PNG to WEBP converter from Google.
Get rid of broken links: When determining the rank of your recruitment website, search engines scan the site for a range of criteria - one of them being if your web journey is joined up. It's important to make sure there are no broken links on your page. If there are, search engines assume the page is outdated and will favour what they believe to be a more up-to-date result ahead of you.
Customise your page URLs: Again, like your titles, headings, and meta descriptions, your page URLs should relate to the on-page copy. It's important that you keep your URLs short enough for search engines whilst still providing value. Aim for between 50-60 characters as a total length (including your domain).
To learn more about getting the best website (and some amazing SEO tricks!) download our eBook below:
