Here’s  a recent case study of a project we did for one of our Recruitment SEO clients we thought you may be interested in. If you want to find out more about our Recruitment SEO services please get in touch.

Project Objective

The Synergy Group provides recruitment, training and consultancy solutions to public and private sector employers across the UK. Synergy Group needed to raise traffic to their website through relevant “organic searches” on Google and the major search engines.

The Synergy Group also wanted to improve their internal understanding of how search engines work through effective training and documentation.

Search Natives’ Solution

Search Natives’ SEO project focused on making sure candidates found the right page on Synergy for their job search. This included:

1. A Technical Audit for the Synergy website with advice as to how best structure the site for search engines
2. Keyword Research to ensure that the terms being searched related to the relevant website pages and used this information to track effectiveness against competitors
3. Link Building – any site is well rendered on the search engines needs relevant links pointing back to their site
4. Manual Optimisation – using the Keyword Research to make sure every page is correctly rendered using the relevant terms and structure

What we did?

Highlighted the technical factors that were affecting how Synergy’s website ranked on the different search engines with best practice implementation recommendations. As well as providing comparative data and analysis of Synergy’s website against its main competitors’ websites with specific areas for improvement.

We also improved Synergy’s link profile. Search Natives used different techniques to provide Synergy with a list of relevant, high quality sites that could link back to Synergy’s site.

Provided recommendations to ensure Synergy’s website was optimised around relevant keywords, writing properly formatted keyword rich title, description and H1 tags for their main pages.  We also provided an Excel document containing the new tags and a document explaining how these changes should be implemented.

All followed up with easy to understand documentation and training.

The results

Whilst Synergy is still in the process of implementing our recommendations, we’ve proven that even the small changes can make a difference. As well as growing from Page rank 4 to 5 within an incredibly short period of time, our work has dramatically increased their relevant traffic and candidate conversion rates. So much so, they kindly said the following…

What they said:

“Search Natives extensive knowledge of recruitment SEO has provided us with the tools to affect our website’s search rankings. By using their expertise we have improved our site from a technical point of view and can directly attribute better and more relevant search traffic as a result of their great work.”

Thought you all would be interested in a recent case study we received from one of our Further Education Colleges we work with as an advertising partner….If you want to know more, you know how to get in touch…

Campaign Objectives:

Brighton & Hove City College provides vocational courses and training to people in Brighton, Hove and the surrounding area. With a limited budget, the objective of their campaign with Net Natives was to increase the applications for multiple hard to fill full and part-time courses.

Net Natives Solution:

Targeted Facebook advertising campaigns.

Brighton & Hove City College’s target audience use Facebook every day. It’s the perfect platform to promote City College’s courses.

For each of the target courses Net Natives designed multiple adverts with varying ad copy and images. This was done to test what images worked and to ensure Facebook users did not get bored of seeing the same advert.

The targeting for each course was individually researched so that only the most relevant users saw the ads. For example, City College wanted to promote a Jazz Dance course so Net Natives specifically targeted those users who had registered an interest in dance on their profiles.Net Natives only targeted those Facebook users living in Brighton, Hove and local towns. By only showing their ads to a specific audience City College only received clicks from people they knew should respond positively to the courses on offer.

Each course campaign was monitored and edited to maximise the effectiveness of the advertising. At the end of the campaign Net Natives provided an end of campaign report demonstrating how many clicks were received for each course as well as other useful information such as the number of clicks for each advert design type received to feed back in to future marketing campaigns.

The Statistic and results

What they said

“Net Natives have proven the concept for us for effective Facebook advertising. We have been particularly impressed with the level of strategic input the Net Natives team have provided to ensure the campaign met our objectives. For us the return on investment has been such that we will use this advertising medium as one of our primary resources, with Net Natives as our go to agency.”

Look, we know we’re great and you, very kindly, tell us we’re great, as well…But now those lovely people over at Monster have given us another, unexpected shot in the arm for our online recruitment skills.

Their Iphone App uses one of our jobs to showcase how a well rendered and well written job appears. All with our lovely logo and one of our old jobs on right in your face – POW…Out of the 5000+ live jobs they only went and chose good old Net Natives.

We have been getting all busy with our Facebook Recruitment Service for recruitment companies and job boards and received some nice PR today.

This is just the first round of it, but thought you may find it interesting…

http://www.onrec.com/news/net_natives_powers_recruitment_inside_fa

http://www.recruiter.co.uk/1006254.article?cmpid=REC04&cmptype=newsletter

What’s even more lovely are the interested recruitment companies calling us up straight after reading and wanting to work with us.

Thanks for that…

With over 1,000 job boards in the UK, it is crucial that you pick the right one for your company and position. We are proud of our recommended job boards, we have gone to a lot of trouble to work out which are the best and then track and measure to ensure the best results. Before we engage with any new boards, we ask some pretty rigorous questions – we thought you may find them useful…

1. What areas of specialisation do the cover (job titles, job sectors, geographic areas, etc)
2. What’s their strongest area (job title/geographic area)
3. What is the most search term
4. How do they attract candidates (what online and offline advertising do they do)
5. How many candidates do they have registered on their site
6. How many are registered for email alerts?
7. What is the most popular job alert sign up?
8. How many of these registered candidates are actively looking for work ?
9. How do they know which of the candidates are active
10. How many candidates are they adding each day?
11. How many of these are eligible to work in the UK?
12. What’s their application to job ration (how does that differ for each job title)
13. How much does each advert cost?
14. What is the cost for multiple ads?
15. Do you need to be into a contract, how long does it last and what is the break clause?
16. What are the upsell options (e.g featured job, email shots, etc) and what are each costs for them ?
17. Who is their major competitors?
18. What new services will they think of offering in the future?
19. Do they offer a free trial?
20. How does their software work (i.e how do you get job posts to the top of listings; i.e. is it keywords or date posted, etc)?
21. What is ratio of consultancy to direct advertisers?
22. Are they audited e.g. ABCe, Noras. If not, by whom?
23. Do candidates need to register with them to apply? If so, what is the process (this could slow down rate of applications)
24. How many searchable CVs do they have as opposed to registrations?
25. Can the CV database be included in a free trial?

Yes I know it is a lot, but that’s what we do. Or you could get in touch or speak to me or on of my campaign team at Net Natives. We know the answers to all of these questions for each job board, afterall it is our job to know this….

This question is being asked a lot at the moment as the BSI looks to work Online Recruitment world looks to create a set of standards to measure and track the best practices for the online recruitment industry.

There have been a lot of discussion about it over at our Recruitment Futurology Group.

I  was invited to attend the first BSI meeting about 18 months ago. It was a good turn out, the CEOs or directors from every major UK job board and senior representatives from REC.

The issue was (and is) over responsibility. If a job board adheres to a standard set of principles, but the person who posts the jobs (the recruiters) do not, then where is the value of that kite mark? At that time, there was unilateral agreement that it couldn’t work.

But why not? Why not have a common set of principles across all of the job boards. Why not say that as a job board, you should only publish jobs that are for REAL vacancies, where EVERY candidate will be notified of acceptance or failure, where there is a common complaints procedure and which are bound by a set of metrics that measure success?

As a recruitment owner, I would love to be able to say to my clients that we only work with job boards that have the BSI standard. As a business, we adhere to those metrics, why shouldn’t our suppliers?

Why shouldn’t the job board industry want to try to do what’s best for the clients, candidates and industry as a whole?

As the MD of one of the Job Boards said to me in another forum, “Steve – if only all recruiters adhered to a set of principles around candidate management – sadly, as we all know, they do not. For Job Boards I suspect its a bit like ‘biting the hand that feeds them’. They grew up on staffing industry billings and came to rely on them – turning on them in this approach would risk 50% of their revenues I suspect.”

I think that pretty much sums it up…!

You will find your job online, but here are some basic precautions you need to take to make sure that no one steals your identity online. Your CV contains a lot of personal information, protect yourself when job hunting online.

For more information on how to create the perfect CV click here but make sure that you do not provide unnecessary personal details about yourself on your CV.

Information you should include:

• Your postal address
• Your home and mobile telephone numbers
• Your education, skills and professional experience
• Your desired salary
• Details about your past and present employers – including whether or not you’d be happy for them to be approached for a reference about you before you are invited to an interview.
• Details about your past and present achievements

Never give out the following details unless you know that they are going to a genuine employer and they personally request them:

• Your passport number
• National Insurance number
• Driving licence
• Credit card or banking details
• Taxation references

There is also no obligation for you to provide information like your date of birth or age, gender, hair or eye colour, weight, height, marital status and the number of children you have. You should be extra cautious if you hear about job opportunities through unexpected emails. Stop and think about whether it’s likely this person will be contacting you and do some investigation into the organisation or individual to check they are legitimate before responding.

Never respond to phishing emails, which will give the impression that they are from legitimate organisations, but aren’t in reality. Many of them will ask for your user names and passwords or other private information.

Always remember not to worry too much. There are loads of great job hunting tools online for keeping you up to date with the latest job opportunities and thousands of new roles are advertised each day. Why not use LinkedIn for job hunting or have a look at the major UK job boards.

Being prepared for your first interview is crucial. Here’s some useful hints and tips to ensure you are in the best possible position to impress.

• Presentation – always wear a suit, even if you know that the company dress code is more casual, if it really isn’t necessary we will advise you beforehand.
• Bring a copy of your CV and any interview notes. More information is here, creating the perfect CV.
• Be prepared – have a look at our list of potential competency based questions the client is likely to ask, but think of further questions you think are relevant and practice with a friend.
• Be enthusiastic – an employer will want to see that you are keen about the role and the company.
• If you don’t know the answer to a question – take a moment to think it through and if you really don’t know then be honest and say why you don’t know.
• Be positive – focus on your strengths and what you know rather than what you don’t know.
• If you like the role, show your interest – at the end of the interview express an interest and ask what the next step would be.
• You should prepare some questions you want to ask at the interview in order for you find out everything you want to about the role and the company. You will have opportunities to ask questions throughout the interview. And almost certainly the interviewer will ask at the end what questions you have.

Here are some example questions to get you started:

• How has this role come available?
• How will my success be monitored in the role?
• What training and development will be offered in the role?
• What is the structure of the team I will be joining?
• Who does the role report to?
• Who are the major competitors and what do they do right/wrong?

Check out our Graduate Careers Advice Page for more information on finding the best job for you.

LinkedIn has a user base of over 8.5 million experienced professionals, and is used by many companies as a database for candidates. For this reason LinkedIn is an excellent place to promote yourself online.

Here are 10 tips to help you enhance your job search using LinkedIn:

Complete your profile thoroughly. You should:

• Include your picture as it allows for a deeper sense of connection to you and should be   part of your brand on all social networking sites.
• List your education, past employers, professional affiliations, awards, and keywords related to your jobs and activities.
• Get references; contact past and present bosses, colleagues, subordinates and clients for recommendations.
• Create a descriptive headline (under your name). The generic title. Make sure your headline is something your target audience is looking for.
• Put a link to your LinkedIn profile on your CV.  For tips on creating the perfect CV click here.

Build your network. Build your network to increase the likelihood that your profile will come up at the top of the list when hiring managers/recruiters are looking for candidates.

Prepare for interviews using LinkedIn. Expand your research by reading about the people who will be interviewing you. Knowing that you  have an acquaintance in common or share an interest is a great way to establish rapport.

Join LinkedIn groups. Join as many groups as possible, but concentrate first on those whose members are people who could hire you (hiring managers) or can help you find a job (recruiters/executive search consultants). You may also want to join job search support groups and industry groups.

Participate in discussions. Share your insights and answers to questions on discussion boards thus demonstrating your knowledge and desire to contribute. Post questions or discussion topics yourself. This will help you make valuable connections while building your personal brand. Always be sure to include your email address in your posts.

Search for jobs daily. LinkedIn’s job board functions like other job boards with the exception that many of the opportunities listed are exclusive to LinkedIn. In addition, many of the opportunities list the recruiters or employers who posted them, offering another level of personal connection for networking.

Identify target companies. You can identify companies by industry and geography to expand your list of target companies. You can filter your LinkedIn list by exploring the company’s web site and job postings. Then, by going back to LinkedIn, you can identify hiring managers and HR managers for additional information and potentially informational interviews.

Update your profile regularly. Every time you update your whole network will be notified and you’ll get exposure.

Include the link to your LinkedIn profile in your signature on every email. That way people can see all your credentials with one click.

LinkedIn can be a valuable job hunting tool if used properly.Why not read our “how to create the perfect CV” post and our “prepare for your first” interview post.

We have recently had some interesting discussions with our job board suppliers about what sort of business are we. Are we are recruitment company or an ad agency?

We are in the business of filling roles NOT selling ads. 9 times out of 10, this can be done with normal, “lineage” job board advertising (our bread and butter), but sometimes clients need that little bit more.

If clients want to gain maximum exposure for a specific position or for the company brand, then you need to think of more than just the advert.

We have run many various creative campaigns, some with a social media element, so with client paid branding, some with all of them. Here I want to focus on the job boards and how to get the most out of them for certain campaigns.

As Campaign Manager, I work closely with the job boards and have recently dome some research on different options and ways of advertising on the job boards to make your role and company stand out from the crowd.  I’ve listed some of the options below:

• Featured Adverts – On average featured adverts get 4 times the amount of applications to usual adverts.

• Banner advertising – There are a number of different types of banner adverts you can look at.  These vary from a ‘skills word’ banner, to a ‘home page’ banner or a ‘location’ banner.  Each targets specific job hunters searching for work in either specific towns, regions or keywords. Use your banner to target specific locations or keywords and it will appear every time a candidate’s search matches the location(s) or words you‘ve sponsored.

• Corporate Buttons – These give you maximum exposure by putting your logo on the home page of the job board.  When a candidate clicks on the button they can either be taken straight to the listing on the site, to your website or the Net Natives website.

• HTML Email – HTML Emails enable your company to promote its vacancies to relevant candidates in a dedicated, fully-branded HTML email.  This is a great way of getting your advert seen by candidates who are not necessarily actively searching.  On average, Total Jobs find that only 30% of their candidates apply to positions by searching for positions.  50% apply when they receive an email about the job and the other 20% come from a variety of sourcing including banner adverts and corporate buttons.

Each have their own relevance, but should be looked at as part of a variety of options open for each campaign.

There’s a lot to take in, so if you can have questions – or if there are any job boards out there with more ideas. Please get in touch.