On a recent HR Technology Channel Podcast episode on TotalPicture, Kris Reid once again displayed his prowess in search engine optimization and digital marketing. He discussed quick wins in website experience, customer engagement, online visibility, search rankings, and business growth in relation to career portals and job ads.
Read on for a sneak peek of the many things you can learn about recruitment SEO and more.
A Bit About TotalPicture Podcast
Before getting into the episode itself, here is a brief overview about the channel and its host.
There is more to Peter Clayton than meets the eye. Sure, he plays a huge role in TPR but did you know that he is also a senior producer and host at another podcast called JobsinPods? Not to mention that he has created breakthrough media for different Fortune 100 companies. He’s definitely someone you shouldn’t take lightly when it comes to radio, TV, documentaries, and web-based media. He did start TotalPicture Podcast all by himself, after all.
Founded in 2005 as Landed.fm, TPR started out with helping professionals to transition careers on Yahoo groups. Those same community career networking organisations have since migrated to LinkedIn and Facebook and the podcast grew and matured along with them. The focus shifted to finding experts on job boards, global warming, and other emerging trends. From that, the name was then changed to TotalPicture Podcast in 2006.
Getting Into the Wayback Machine
As how many podcasts go, the host Peter Clayton wanted to know how Kris came to focus on his current field and make a successful business out of it. Of course, the Coolest Guy in SEO was more than happy to give him and the listeners a better idea of who he is and what he does.
He was a software engineer by trade and used to work in finance in London. When the global crisis came along, he lost his job which was a blessing in disguise. He’d returned to Australia then and built an online game as he had wanted to learn a new type of programming. Along the way, he began looking into how he could get people to his website. That’s when he entered the world of SEO.
Podcasts as Part of a Business Strategy
Being that there is a podcast category on the Ardor SEO website, Peter was curious as to how podcasters came into play in the business’ strategy. He wanted to know why Kris was making a concerted effort on being on numerous channels as he had been on almost a hundred shows already. Obviously, something was working and he wished to be in on the secret.
Kris simply explained that he finds it fun to talk about what he does. Plus, he believes that it provides value to people. He shared that he enjoyed being on a yoga podcast a few weeks past, and on an NGO podcast a week before that. It’s great to connect with those who are passionate about their businesses and help them share their passion and make the world a better place.
This time around he’s on the human resource targeted TotalPicture Podcast to talk about SEO for recruitment agencies, among other things.
The Difference Between SEO and SEM
With the introductions over and done with, Peter wanted to jump right in to meatier parts of the HR SEO talk. But first, he wanted to know how SEO is different from SEM.
“SEO is search engine optimization”
This basically means helping Google understand what a website is all about. While it may be an algorithm that keeps getting smarter every time, it could still use some assistance in getting to know a site better. It’s going to crawl the website, read the content, and determine what search terms it should be ranking for. Actively working out what the audience is really looking for and structuring a site to make it easier for both users and search engines to understand is essentially what SEO is.
“SEM is search engine marketing”
On the other hand, this is the paid search on Google. This is noticeable by typing in any commercial type of keywords that brings up ads. It’s where Google makes all of their money compared to the organic stuff or free listings. Only about 2 to 4 percent of people click on ads though, while the top 3 on SERPs garner about 17 to 33 percent of clicks. This is why search engine optimization is still the better option for businesses.
Delving into Keywords
SEM is how Google makes money so they spend a lot of time and effort in providing tools for checking search volumes and even bid prices. A business can just put their website into AdWords and they’ll be given a whole bunch of keyword suggestions. They make it really easy for someone to create ads as that’s where they mainly get their income. Kris says that these tools would be the first place where he would look to for finding keywords.
Continuing on the topic of keywords, Peter shared that human capital or recruitment SEO terms such as HRIS cost a fortune per click. Kris brought up a similar situation with an Ardor client that pays over 500 dollars for “truck accident attorney Chicago”. The host thought that a lot of people must be getting into truck accidents in Chicago then but Kris said that isn’t exactly the case.
Sidetracked into Conversion Rates
The search volume might not always be radically high but the value per customer might. This is why people are willing to pay that much. For instance, a lifetime student at a yoga studio doesn’t bring in the same money as a plaintiff in a vehicular accident. They may only be able to afford 2 dollars per click. Besides, each click doesn’t guarantee a customer as it just gets someone to a website. There’s a need to look at conversion rates from there as well.
Apart from the keywords, landing pages are also important. A good rule is to make sure that whatever keyword you may be bidding on matches with what is on the landing page. Even if it was slightly different, the conversion rate would go down. It’s vital to try and marry those two aspects up so you meet the expectations people have when they click.
Going Back to the Topic of Keywords
Getting their conversation back on track, Peter segued that he and Kris had been exchanging emails for a couple of weeks. He’d been informed that the two terms “Amazon job” and “USA job” both have nearly a million searches every month. This shows the importance of SEO for recruitment agencies. If you can SEO job search, you can get the most CVs.
Would you like to know how Kris unpacked it for the listeners? Then, check out the full podcast here. You can find it on Feedburner and iTunes as well.
If you would like to know more about TotalPicture Podcast, Peter Clayton, and the HR Technology Channel, pay a visit to the following social channels:
