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It is no secret that social media is a hot topic right now. From a business standpoint, you know that social media can be a powerful tool for marketing and recruiting.

But what about your candidates? Do they realize the effect that  social media is having on their job search efforts?

Most employers will at least do a Google search of anyone they are interested in hiring. What they find can be damaging to a job search and a career.

Make sure that you are conducting these same search before sending a candidate out on an interview. Remember, they are representing your firm and this is just another way to manage your brand online.

The following article has some great tips for how employers are using social media, and how to clean-up any “digital dirt” that you may have.

Digital “dirt” can haunt your job search

Search Engines Bing and Google both made huge announcements yesterday in that they have formed partnerships with Twitter and Facebook to make status updates searchable.

On Google’s official blog VP Marissa Mayer stated:

“We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months. That way, the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.”

From a Search Engine Optimization standpoint, this makes being aggressive with Social Media essential if you want to get–and stay–at the top of search engine rankings.

Quick quiz…

In terms of Google searches, which of the following terms received the most monthly search volume?

a. Staffing firm
b. Staffing firms
c. Staffing agency
d. Staffing agencies
e. They are all about the same

Not sure?  Then you need to find out!  Small variations in the wording you use throughout your website can have a dramatic effect on your website traffic. 

Although the variations above seem very small, the amount of monthly traffic each receives is drastically different:

• The phrase “Staffing firm” is searched for nearly 10,000 times each month.  Not bad huh? Keep reading…
• The phrase “Staffing firms” is searched for over 12,000 times each month.  Even better–but still not even close to good enough…
• The phrase “Staffing agency” is searched for roughly 135,000 times each month.  Surprised?  It gets better…
• Last but not least is the phrase “Staffing agencies” which Google estimates at 246,000 searches each month.

The simple change from “Staffing firm” to “Staffing agencies” results in a difference of nearly a quarter million searches.  And this is just one quick example.

The Takeaway:
Do your research.  Whether you’re writing new content for your website, working with an SEO firm,  buying PPC ads or even adding a new post to your blog, spend time to find out what people are searching for–don’t just assume. 

As demonstrated above simple changes in wording and even the order of words can have a huge impact on whether you’re on the first page of Google search rankings…or absent completely. 

If you would like some assistance with your keyword research please give me a call at 888-696-2900 or send me an email at bsmith@haleymarketing.com.  I’d be happy to share some advice and help in any way possible.

In order to stay one step ahead of the competition you need to periodically do some competitive analysis.  Luckily for you there are some great online tools available to help:

Google Alerts
Allows you to create a custom alert that notifies everytime Google indexes something new about your competitors.

Yahoo! Alerts
Allows you to create a custom alert that notifies everytime Yahoo! indexes something new about your competitors.

Live Alerts
Allows you to create a custom alert that notifies everytime Microsoft Live/Bing indexes something new about your competitors.

SpyFu
Allows you to see how much your competitors are spending in Pay Per Click advertising and what keywords they are buying. 

Using these tools will help you improve your competitive analysis and stay one step ahead of the competition.  And, if you’re interested in stealing more online traffic away from your competitions and creating a stronger online presence, please download our Staffing SEO Guide or call me today at 888-696-2900 and I would be happy to share some secrets!

Looking to get more out of Twitter?  Interested in monitoring Twitter conversations?  Want to make managing multiple Twitter accounts easier?  Then you’ll want to check out these popular “Twitter Clients” :

• TweetDeck
• Tweetie
• HootSuite
• Twhirl
• Twitterfon
• Seesmic
• Ping.fm
• UberTwitter
• Twitterrific
• TwitterFox

Not using Twitter yet?  You should consider it…

According to recent results from Quantcast, monthly traffic on Twitter averages nearly 30 million visits in the U.S. alone—with 72% of that from individuals age 18-49.  Put simply, your target audience (both business decision makers and job seekers) are using Twitter.  If you’re not there, you’re missing an opportunity. 

And if you don’t have time to deal with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogging don’t worry–we can do it for you!  Check out our new Blogging and Social Media Services package.

Q: My website has Google Analytics but I don’t really know where to start.  What stats are most important?

A: First off, congratulations!  You picked a great tool to help analyze your website traffic. Google analytics is a very robust free service that provides detailed statistics about your website visitors. 

When first logging into your account you may seem somewhat overwhelmed with the amount of data available–don’t be! 

Here is an overview of some key metrics to help get you started:

1. Your Dashboard – Your dashboard displays a summary of your past month’s traffic. It can help you gauge general traffic patterns and also highlight key spikes in traffic. 

   

2. Site Usage – One of the most important statistics to pay attention to in this section is your Bounce Rate–the percentage of people that visited your website and left after viewing only one page. For staffing firms we have found an average bounce rate of roughly 30-35%.  If your bounce rate is higher than this, you may need to consider a different page layout, more simple navigation,or adding more compelling content. 

   

3. Traffic Sources – This section details the three ways people can get to your website:

• Direct Traffic shows the number of people who typed your website address directly into their browser.
  
• Search Engines includes everyone that found your website through Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc.  The keywords people typed into the Search Engine to find your site are also captured.  Examining this data can help you determine if Search Engine Optimization is needed (for more detailed information download our free Staffing SEO Guide).
• Referring Sites shows the number of people that arrived at your site by clicking on a link on a different website.  This can be extremely helpful when evaluating the value of job board listings and online advertising. 

By starting with these three main areas, you will gain a very good understanding of how your website is performing.  You can then use this information to make adjustments to your website, test changes, determine how other marketing activities are performing and improve the number of qualified leads coming from your website. 

If you would like to discuss more in-depth reporting capabilities (like creating specific goals and tracking conversion rates), please feel free to contact me at 888-696-2900 or bsmith@haleymarketing.com.

Here are some great plugins you can install to turn your blog into a great SEO tool:

• All in one SEO Pack
  This fool-proof plugin helps you optimize your blog for search engines
• ShareThis
  This tool allows your readers to easily add your post to many different social networking sites. Click on the ‘Share This’ button below to give it a try!
• Akismet
  Are you getting a lot of spam from your blog? Akismet checks your blog comments to see if they are spam or not.

If you would like more information on Wordpress, or the plugins above, contact us today!

While Google and Yahoo! still maintain their hold on the number one and two most used search engines, Bing is quickly gaining ground.  According to Neilson’s latest monthly search rankings report, Microsoft’s Search Sites (using the Bing search engine) grew 22.1% in July, 2009.

Bing SEO Tips for Staffing Firms

At Haley Marketing Group we have optimized more than 50 staffing and recruiting websites just this year and collect traffic statistics on close to 100 staffing and recruiting websites.  In-depth testing along with this key information helps us determine what helps increase website traffic, and what doesn’t.

So what can you do to drive more traffic from Bing?  The first step is to download our Staffing SEO guide and follow our Staffing SEO best practices.   When reviewing the guide pay close attention to two key elements to are particularly important in Bing’s rankings:

1. Page Titles – This is the text that appears in the top blue bar of your Internet browser.  Ensure each page of your site has unique titles that are optimized with your most important keywords.

2. Build Content – Once you have optimized your existing pages, you need a plan to continually add fresh and relevant content.  The major search engines  love fresh and relevant content.  The more content you have, the more keyword laden pages your website contains, and the more opportunity to have to rank well in searches.  Creating a blog can be a great way to build this content.  Find out more about staffing blogs.

If you would like to discuss other key elements that may affect your search engine rankings please contact me at bsmith@haleymarketing.com or call at 888-696-2900.

When someone types your company name into a Google search, what will they see? Hopefully they will find your website, but what else appears? If you don’t know, you better find out. If you do know, you’re still not off the hook–those results can change tomorrow!

Find Out What People Are Saying About Your Staffing Firm
Wouldn’t it be great if there was an easy way to get notified when someone mentioned you, your company, or your competitors online?  Well luckily there is: Google Alerts. 

This free service allows you to create alerts that notify you when your search term appears on new web pages, news stories, blogs, etc.  To start, simply go to Google Alerts and set up alerts for your company name (”XYZ Staffing”), your name, your recruiters’ names, and even your competitors.  Alerts will then be emailed to you at whatever time interval you choose.

Haley Marketing Group is excited to announce the addition of social media and blog development to their stable of services. 

Haley’s social media services will help staffing and recruiting firms; position themselves as experts, expand their professional networks, strengthen their relationships with HR managers and other staffing decision makers, and gain top rankings with Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines. 

For a special one-time promotional price of $995 and a monthly fee of $395, staffing and recruiting firms will receive: 

• A customized Wordpress blog to compliment the look and feel of their corporate website.  This includes blog setup, training and search engine optimization tools.
• Four professionally written and search engine optimized posts per month consisting of: a case study, company focused post, candidate focused post, and a top job or top candidate post.
• Set up of Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook profiles which includes a branded design and integration with your blog so that content is automatically fed to these social media sites. 

Carol Szatkowski of Clear Point Consultants, Inc. stated, “Haley has been an invaluable consultant in assisting me with my company’s SEO and social media marketing strategy. They understand the technology and also our business objectives to increase our Web presence and build new business. Since working with Haley to create an SEO strategy our web traffic has increased 70%. I highly recommend Haley if you want a knowledgeable and effective consultant to increase leads to your Web site.” 

Brad Smith Online Marketing Director at Haley Marketing notes, “Over the past year we have worked closely with dozens of firms on SEO and Internet marketing.  We have found social media and blogging can be extremely effective tools for staffing and recruiting firms and we are very excited to offer these valuable services to our clients at a price that can fit their budgets.” 

Interested staffing firms can call 1-888-696-2900 to find out more.

Haley Marketing’s Social Media and Blog services