February/March 2008 Newsletter
Welcome to the PageUp People Newsletter
This month the newsletter will cover:
- Harnessing the Power of Search Engine Marketing for Recruitment
- PageUp People News �?" A New Ball Game for PageUp People
- New PageUp People Website
- Complimentary Integrated Talent Management Whitepaper
- 2008 Breakfast Series
Harnessing the Power of Search Engine Marketing for Recruitment
By Simon Dunwoody, Business Development Management, Found Agency
Search engine optimisation (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) has traditionally been the realm of businesses trying to attract customers to their site, either for online ecommerce transactions or as a form of lead generation. The industry has grown from a small �?ocottage�?� industry just 4 or 5 years ago to a multi-million dollar booming industry in 2008. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (Australia) search accounted for 44% of the total online ad spend, with $527,250,000 being spent in the financial year ending June 2007. Clearly, advertisers have harnessed the power of search to attract people to their websites.
Classifieds accounted for 27% of the total online ad spend. Recruitment continues to lead this category, followed by real estate and automotive. This indicates that recruiters and HR departments are still relying heavily on job boards as a way of attracting candidates.
The likes of Seek, MyCareer and CareerOne all realized at an early stage that search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo! were going to provide the majority of their traffic and hence acted upon it. As an example try searching for �?oIT jobs�?� �?" the top three �?osponsored�?� and natural search results are all job boards. According to some research released by AOL, the top 3 natural search results attract almost 70% of the traffic for that keyword.
So which is best? PPC or SEO? Both - depending on your situation. PPC has the benefit of being virtually immediate, i.e. as soon as your campaign has been built, your ads will start to show almost immediately and start receiving clicks. The main downside is usually the cost. PPC works on an auction system, so to be in the top paid position it may cost several dollars per click. Also remember you are competing with the large job boards for the same keywords �?" they tend to have very large budgets so they can afford to outbid you. According to Google the average spend for a job board is approximately $200,000 per month*, that�?Ts just on Google! Another potential issue with PPC is the trust factor �?" i.e. if you have to pay to be there, is the person searching likely to trust you?
Natural rankings, achieved through SEO tend to be favoured by most companies, however most don�?Tt realize the amount of work involved to achieve high rankings for large traffic keywords like �?oIT jobs�?� or �?omining jobs�?�. As previously stated, the top three natural search results receive the lion�?Ts share of the traffic, so everyone is fighting for those spots. SEO tends to be much cheaper in the long run as clicks are essentially �?ofree�?� once the rankings are achieved. A fundamental first step in SEO is establishing what keywords you want to rank for. There are several ways of doing this, but one way is to use your PPC data. From your PPC campaign you�?Tll be able to tell which keywords delivered clicks to your site and even which keywords generated enquiries or potential candidates.
Another benefit to consider are the branding opportunities offered by both PPC and SEO. People tend to associate credible rankings with credible companies. So for example, if your site comes up number one for �?omining jobs�?� people will think you�?Tre the specialist leading company for that keyword. In this scenario combining SEO and PPC has a multiplier effect, so if you are in the favourable position of already ranking number one in the natural search results for a particular keyword, it�?Ts advisable to also bid to position one in the paid results as this almost guarantees you�?Tll get the click.
As most companies still haven�?Tt taken up this opportunity both in regards to PPC and SEO for recruitment, now is the time to act and focus on your PPC and SEO efforts.
Want to Know More?
Simon Dunwoody is Business Development Manager of Found Agency Pty Ltd . Simon will be presenting at the PageUp People Melbourne breakfast on 28/2/08 and at the Sydney breakfast on 27/3/08. Please contact the PageUp People Marketing department at marketing@pageuppeople.com if you are interested in attending.
PageUp People News
A New Ball Game For PageUp People
PageUp People announced the global launch of a suite of integrated talent management solutions in January 2008.
The news sees PageUp People bolster the leading position in the e-recruitment market by adding further Software-as-a-Service solutions and consulting capability across the four key areas of talent management; retention and succession, performance management, training and development and recruitment and selection.
Amongst the suite of integrated talent management solutions are several new to market web-based tools including Contractor Management and Performance Management.
The web-based tools have the ability to stand alone or integrate with the existing 360 Review and Recruitment Management tools to provide an end-to-end integrated talent management solution.
Unique to market is the application of a capability framework, underpinning all PageUp People web-based tools and consulting services.
All solutions have been designed to help businesses grow by ensuring that their human capital strategies and systems deliver competitive advantage by aligning to strategic business objectives.
Leveraging off 10 years of success, the growth of the PageUp People offering to a broader coverage of talent management has been a vision of Karen Cariss, CEO, for many years.
"Stepping up our offering to cover the full scope of talent management has been a natural progression for PageUp, as we view integrated talent management solutions as the way of the future. A strategic integrated talent management approach is essential to organisations wanting to gain a competitive advantage."
A recent PageUp People Research Paper, 'Integrated Talent Management - Optimising the Employee Life Cycle', identifies the need for an integrated talent management strategy as being the 'biggest challenge facing organisations this century'.
"Effectively aligning your workforce to deliver on current and future business needs, while creating opportunities for employees to progress, learn, grow and engage and connecting your people to these opportunities, will guarantee the success of your talent management strategy and ultimate business sustainability."
The extended PageUp People suite of solutions is available to organisations globally.
For further information on the PageUp People suite of integrated talent management solutions, please click here.
New PageUp People Website
PageUp People launched a new website to correspond with the new suite of solutions. Check it out! www.pageuppeople.com .
Complimentary Integrated Talent Management Whitepaper
If you are interested in receiving a complimentary copy of the PageUp People WhitePaper, Integrated Talent Management �?" Optimising the Employee Life Cycle (valued at $295 ex GST), please contact the PageUp People marketing department at marketing@pageuppeople.com or +61 3 8677 3777.
2008 Breakfast Series
PageUp People�?Ts 2008 breakfast series is looking very exciting with guest speakers presenting in Melbourne and Sydney throughout the year on best practice and trends across the four key areas of talent management.
If you would like to register to receive breakfast invites in your state, please contact the Marketing department on marketing@pageuppeople.com .
