Case Studies » Recruitment Web Design & Marketing

Although well-established with over 10 years in business and a 70-strong workforce, their website was not bringing in business and they relied on job boards and print advertising which were not proving to be cost-effective or reaching the desired target market.

Recent research shows that the first port-of-call for many new jobseekers is rapidly becoming Google. Print advertising is dying and job boards are struggling to differentiate themselves. Those who have recently become unemployed as a result of the recession are unlikely to know which job board would be best for them. Major job boards are moving to TV advertising to become “destination sites” to combat this competition from Google. Newer job search engines provide free listings and also feature well in search engine results, adding even more competition for the job boards.

Pay-per-click (e.g. Google AdWords) is another way to get your site listed but needs to managed carefully, preferably by an expert. Research has shown that considerably less people (approximately 20%) use or trust the sponsored links generated by AdWords. It can also work out expensively in the long run, although used in conjunction with
search engine optimisation (SEO), it can help identify the keyword phrases that are both converting well to applications and also highly competitive and therefore expensive to bid on. These keyword phrases are the ones that should be focused on.

• Cost per CV acquisition in print can be anything up to £100 per CV
• Cost per CV acquisition using AdWords can be up to £25 per CV
• Cost per CV acquisition using Job Boards can vary widely, with some boards charging £600 per job posting.

Having a website that both works well and brings in visitors from search engines and social media channels is one of the most cost-effective and measurable ways to advertise your jobs.

The solution:

We worked with the client to specify and develop a search-engine optimised website and social media optimisation strategy. The website takes jobs daily from their Bond Adapt database via Broadbean and creates search engine optimised pages. Google is automatically notified of changes via an XML sitemap and also via a feed to Google Base.
Jobs are also fed to leading job search engines which are the main source of traffic for the site after Google. These are:

RSS feeds and email alerts notify candidates of new jobs saving them searching again. Candidate Zone personalises their experience, allowing targeted jobs and messages to be presented to them when they come back to the site.

The client maintains pages on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube which regularly drive new visitors and candidates to their website.

Jobs and blog posts are automatically broadcast to Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

The results:

Since launch the website has gone from strength to strength, forming the online ‘hub’ for a network of digital marketing activities encompassing: search engine marketing via Google, Bing and Yahoo, as well as a growing number of job-specific search engines such as Indeed, Trovit, Twitterjobsearch and SimplyHired. Jobs are also syndicated to a number of Twitter accounts, Facebook pages and LinkedIn groups.

The site also acts as the primary communication mechanism for company and industry-related that are posted on the blog and syndicated to Twitter, raising both the profile and awareness of the client in the industries they serve.

Our FXRecruiter Analytics, combined with Google Analytics really helps prove the success of our websites.

Traffic to the site grew ten-fold in the first 2 years since launch, and continues to grow, with January 2011 being the best month ever.

In the 3 years since launch:

• 29% of traffic was ‘direct’ visits from people who know the website
• 24.6% was from organic search results in search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask
• 20% was from aggregators such as Indeed, Trovit, SimplyHired

 

In most months, 4 of the top 10 referrers of traffic, according to Google Analytics, are job aggregators fed by FXRecruiter FeedManager.

Increased traffic to the site has led to increased applications, registrations and ultimately placements via the website and resulted in reduced reliance on job boards and other advertising mediums, along with associated cost savings. Return on Investment from the website is running at 2000 – 2500% per month. The website paid for itself in around 2 months. Job board advertising and print-based advertising costs have been greatly reduced and in many cases cancelled.