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Hi everyone, this is Denise from Superfast Recruitment with the latest blog in our series on marketing strategies for recruitment companies for 2021.
Of course, you can always start them now, too.
What I’m sharing with you is what is working now. It wouldn’t fit and align with my values and integrity to share things that didn’t work. That is why I’m sharing these ideas, particularly the ones that are working, and exceptionally well.
Now, today we’re talking about business blogging.
A couple of things to think about first: if you haven’t downloaded our marketing checklist, go and do that, you can find it here. Also, if you are not leveraging social media, which is another key element of content on your website because you want to drive traffic there, then have a look at our social media report.
Business Blogging
Why would you want to be bothered to start business blogging? Surely that’s old hat, Denise. The answer is, no.
Content is as important as ever. In fact, potentially more so now than ever before. Let’s stand back and reflect on 2020, which has been a naff year, really, all things considered.
For us, it’s been hard in the sense of being away from our families, we’re both very much family girls, we love our family, and we haven’t seen them for a while.
I think we’ve seen them twice in the entire year, which is most unusual for us, and we do miss them.
There’s so much going on this year, and one of the outputs of that is that whenever there’s a shakeup in the market, people start reviewing who they work with. They start looking at their suppliers, what value do they add, and they go into that consideration phase; you will find that people will be on your website looking at you and what you do.
This is the value of content marketing, particularly around having business blogs on your website.
It will help to boost your conversions because it educates people that come to your website, that you are somebody in their sector that knows what they’re doing, and that you understand what clients and candidates are going through.
Website Content
Now, something else about having content on your website is this – if people arrive there, and there’s nothing for them to look at, it doesn’t bode well.
As people are progressing through their careers, they’ve got lots of questions in their mind. If you actually can help to answer these questions, what a difference that makes in the customer experience that they actually have. You will elevate yourself above all the other recruiters that are out there that are fighting and scrapping for business. You need to have both client and candidate content on your website.
Just yesterday, we had an email from one of our lovely clients who’d had an email from one of her clients saying, “I’ve always loved your blogs, I really appreciate them. This one particularly helped me when I was feeling quite low.” Remember the Maya Angelou quote, “People will never forget how you made them feel.”
Imagine if you are delivering value to your audience, what a difference that will make in helping elevate your position in the market. Because marketing, next year in 2021, is going to be about standing out. How do you get somebody choosing you above other people? That’s where content comes in.
How Often Should You Blog?
No, you don’t have to blog every day, but what you need is a base level of content on your website that people can come and find that is of value to them.
Many people reading this are probably thinking, “Oh, but I don’t have time, Denise. I don’t have time.” Let me share a couple of ideas with you.
First of all, number one – yes, you can outsource it. All I would say is, make sure that that person understands recruitment, because, for many people, it takes them quite a while. When I talk about people, I’m talking about writers to get their head around the recruitment concept of candidate and client journeys.
We have a particular content package that we are selling at the moment. If you would like to find out more about that, then email either Andy at superfastrecruitment.co.uk, or Sharon.
How to Write a Blog for Your Recruitment Website
I’m going to give you some top tips here on where you can start and what you can do if you want to write your own content.
The first thing to do is set aside some time. Think about making it practical; think about what the things are that my clients and candidates struggle with.
Just think about some of the recent conversations that you might have had. If you record your calls, go and have a listen to them, because there will be some absolute gems there that you can use.
Thinking about some practical ideas, then sit down and brainstorm some headings that you might want to use. It might be around competency-based interviews; it might be around how you, as a manager, conduct a competency-based interview.
Remember, for many hiring managers it’s not their full-time job. This is a massive gap in the market that you can plug for people too.
Now, original blog posts, as the name implies, were posts, and they were 150 words or something like that. Nowadays, that’s not going to cut it; you need to be thinking a minimum of 800 to 1000 words to do a piece of content.
Think about the length, think about the topics that you want to cover, and use subheads. If you go over to the Superfast Recruitment website, you’ll see subheadings for all of our content, and these make it much easier for people to read and consume your content.
The other thing that you want to do, and not many people do this, is to use links throughout your blog. Hyperlink back to other parts of your website where people can read additional content that’s going to help them.
Let’s say you’re looking at competency-based interviews. You might have another article on confidence top tips. Always have an article on confidence on your website; candidates find that particularly relevant.
For a client, it’s about building a talent pipeline and hyperlink back to that because Google’s algorithm loves to see links back to what’s called “internal links” – links to other parts of your website.
Make sure that you do that; make it practical, don’t make it jargon. People are coming there for advice; they want practical advice about careers, practical advice about building a team. They don’t need niche data and information on your specific sector, because there’ll be recognised websites they can go to for that; much as it might be nice for us to stroke our ego and think that’s what they want.
Additional Blog Writing Tips
Now, here’s a couple of other things to consider when it comes to writing your blogs.
Think about formatting – don’t have it all bunched up with no spaces. Remember, 50% of people now view content on their smartphone or their iPad, so make sure that things are spaced out and easier to read.
Make it logical, formatted, organised, and of course, have somebody check the spelling. I strongly recommend investing in some software such as Grammarly (and go for the paid version). It’s fabulous at helping you eradicate any typos that you might have.
The next thing to do is, always have a call to action and a telephone number. I see a number of blogs where people end it with “Bye for now” without leveraging the piece of content. The goal is to get a lead from it, so make sure that you have a call to action.
The number of times I see content written without a call to action, and that call to action could be –
“If you’d like to know more about X, Y, Z, if you’d like to be on our list so that when a hot candidate applies to, also come to us, then you will be one of the first people to contact.”
or
“If you’d like to talk about building your talent pipeline, if you’d like to do X, if you’d like to do Y…”
And then give them different options so they can contact you.
You will see at the end of all of our blogs that you read, and our podcast will be a call to action, for example, “If you would like some help with your marketing, then get in contact”, or “If you’d like to know more about Superfast circle, then book a call here with it”. Because there will be a time when someone gets to the end of your post, and they want to know “what is the next action for me to take?”.
Next Steps?
Business blogging, I love that word because it is very ’90s, 2000, isn’t it? Yet, it will make a massive difference to your website, your Google ranking, how people view you in the market too.
As I say, if you want to find out more, we’ve got a limited offer on a content booster package of blog posts. If you want to know more about that, then drop one of us an email at support at Superfast Recruitment. We can have a conversation with you about that.
We’ve created a couple of special products at the moment with it being such a special, different year.
This is Denise, with marketing strategies for 2021. Next time, I’m going to be talking about something a bit different. I’m going to be going really old school, and this one works, and that’s direct mail.
Look forward to speaking to you soon, and this is Denise saying, bye for now.
