Social Media Profile Optimization

I often get asked how social media and search engine rankings can be used together. For the most part I can tell you that most SEO professionals use social media mainly as a channel to help people discover content and link to it as well as for brand management and online reputation management initiatives.

But what about just getting your profiles listed in Google?

In a recent interview, Dana Todd of Newsforce and also a SEMPO board member talked about how social media frequently accounts for up to half of the top ten search results on Google for any given query

That said, ensuring your social media profiles are optimized will increase the likeliness that they will appear within the search engines results pages. Optimizing your social media profiles is no different than optimizing a website. At the end of the day SEO is really all about keywords, quality content, and links.


Tips for Optimizing Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter Profiles

Facebook SEO Tips

• Use a vanity URL if possible – read FAQ’s Here
  


• Fill out all your information as complete as possible (basic info, personal info, contact info)
  


• Join groups and participate in their discussions
  
  
• Become a fan of pages – Become a fan or Arbita
  


• Ensure your profile Picture is up to date
  


• Use the Facebook notes section for posting blog posts
  
  
• Use the shout box for sharing links and tips
  
  
• Use the links box to share important links to your website other profiles
  


• Under Privacy > Search settings select “create a public listing for search engines”
  
  

Twitter SEO Tips

• In your Twitter Settings update your name to read “First Name, Last Name” IE: Nicole Bodem - No one searches for “Nicole_Bodem” or “NicoleBodem”
  


• Optimize your twitter bio line – it appears in the search results. Use keywords that you want to be found for. If you are comfortable talking about yourself in the third person, your name will be bolded within the search results. IE: Nicole Bodem is a Global Search Marketing Strategist
  


• Build followers – Twitter will internally link your followers to your profile. This means that search engines will see your followers as “links” to your profile. Links of course help with search engine visibility. Additionally, if you tweet high quality content you’ll naturally pick up additional outside links.
  
  
• Link to your twitter profile using your name as anchor text, IE: "follow Nicole Bodem on Twitter"

LinkedIn SEO Tips

When completing your LinkedIn profile remember to use words and phrases that you hope will be picked up by those searching for people in your field. Your goal is to have a profile 100% complete.

• Get a vanity URL – your name if possible & make sure your profile is “public”
  
  
• Your past work history should go back 10 years . Explain what you did at each company.
  
  
• Fill out the summary section, add substance consider it your “elevator pitch”.
  
  
• Write/Get Recommendations & Ask/Answer questions
  
  
• Continually build on your connections
  
  
• Comment on the LinkedIn blog and link back to your LinkedIn profile
  
  
• Don’t forget the additional information section – When adding websites, click on the “other” section. You can name your website and that will act as anchor text for the link. (See Images for After Effect)
  

If you have any tips to share on optimizing social media profiles, feel free to leave a comment

Does SEO Open the Flood Gates to Receiving Unqualified Resumes?

This past Thursday I gave my first-ever webinar through Kennedy Information. I have to say, it was a blast and I can only hope it was valuable to those attending. There were some really great questions asked duing the interactive Q&A session, one in particuliar that peaked my interest.

I thought it might be beneficial to share the question along with my answer (an expanded version of it anyway) here.

The Question

An ATS provider had told them not to engage in SEO as it would open the flood gates to tons of unqualified resumes. The question asked was basically whether or not this was a truthful statement.

Before I share my thoughts on this, I have to tell you first that SEO is my absolute passion in life (A bigger dork, I could not be) I have dedicated the last 7 years to studying and working full-time in the industry. That said, it erks (is that a word?) me when people who may not entirely understand the field give out inaccurate information.

My first reaction was that they are more than likely unable to provide SEO therefore wanted to devalue the importance of it using the scare tactic of “tons of unqualified resumes” Nice - keep thinking about yourself and not what's in the best interest of the industry as a whole.

The Truth - As I see It (other opinions welcome)

You will never be able to completely eliminate unqualified candidates from applying to your jobs, it doesn’t matter what channel you're using to attract them.

SEO is about leveraging a new candidate traffic opportunity. There are millions of searches being conducted by candidate’s everyday on search engines, applying SEO best practices to your career site and job content will help you get the attention of these people. Will you receive some unqualified applicants? Of course, at the end of the day SEO is just a form of marketing not magic.

With SEO you choose what words and phrases you want to be found most relevant for. If you're hiring specifically for an experienced .net developer that must be a US citizen that’s what you optimize the job description for. Will non US citizens that are only entry level still apply? You bet.

Keyword Research & Job Description Copy is KEY

If you’re receiving more unqualified applicants than normal, the first thing I would do is evaluate whether or not your job descriptions are written in a way that attracts the RIGHT candidate as well as look at what words and phrases you’re targeting in your optimization efforts.

The more specific you can be with your optimization efforts, the better qualified candidate you are bound to attract.

Thoughts?

Your Employment Brand Matters

This morning I found a blog post entitled "employment branding fact or fiction" that was written by Jobs2web's Ken Horst aka The Jobs Guy. If you haven't done so already go check it out, it's sure to fire some great discussions. There were some great comments on his recruitingblogs page but unfortunately it looks like the post was taken down.

The post basically insinuates that employer branding is just a way for recruitment marketing agencies to "schnooker money" from talent managers. (Nice phrasing mark)

It also goes on to state...

"If your talent acquisition leaders are getting caught up in employment
branding conversations with their agency, tell them to get their head
examined. There is no greater undelivered promise than “we can
build your employment
brand!”

There are many undelivered promises in our industry (and others) such as guaranteed search engine rankings for your jobs but that's another blog post topic altogether.

My Thoughts

Granted I am FAR from an employment brand expert but isn't employment branding a key component in effectively hiring and retaining quality employees? Don't all companies want to be known as a "great place to work" in the minds of potential candidates? In my opinion a strong employment brand definitely effects a candidates decisions to accept a job offer.

I know from personal experience it has effected my decisions in the past. I get asked all the time about my past employment experiences.

What's Your Opinion?

I'd love to hear from some of the employment branding experts out there like Lizz Pellet or Ryan Estis.

Hopefully their Google alerts will pick this up and they'll stop by the chime in.

The Importance of Hiring a PPC expert

Search engines like Google and Yahoo make it very easy for anyone to set up a Pay-Per-Click campaign. In fact setting up an account takes under 20 minutes. You simply register, input keywords, type in ad copy, throw in your URL and your off and running. But have you ever asked why search engines make this such as easy process?


Search Engines Want Your Money!


Search engines make it easy because they want your money. Granted, most search engines offer a Pay-Per-Click learning center, like Google's but they know that most people don't have the time to learn how they can make their campaigns more effective. It's like offering a mail in rebate, what percentage of folks actually mail in their rebate forms?


Just Because They Make It Easy Doesn't mean You Shouldn't Hire an Expert

By expert I mean someone that's been doing Pay-Per-Click for a while not someone that has read a few articles on the web and has deemed themselves experts. Or even worse, A company that has simply added it to their services because it's the new buzz.

Do More With Less

With the economy the way it is people need to figure out how they can do more with less, less money that is. One way to do that is by re-evaluating who is doing your PPC. Are you really getting everything out of your PPC campaign, could your campaign be better optimized?

There is more to PPC than Meets the Eye

To avoid wasting $$ on PPC you have to understand how the system works, ensure that your ads are not displaying for irrelevant searches like this:

Get a Closer Look

• Sexy Nurse Jobs
  
• Naughty Nurse Jobs

I love you Monster, but if you can't do PPC for yourself, I am not sure that it should be a service you provide to others

Why SEO is a Good investment in a Down Economy

Those of us fortunate enough to be employed during the economic downturn are probably finding a greater daily workload and having to figure out how they can do more with less, less people that is.

Now some may think doing more with less implies doing a lower quality work with fewer resources, I would simply argue it means finding a way to work smarter, improve efficiencies and make your current investments work harder for you.

What does this have to do with SEO you may ask? SEO is lauded as bring one of the most cost effective forms of online marketing. Most, if not all companies have some form of career website that they’ve invested thousands of dollars in. If people not able to find your website, this investment is not living up to its full potential.

3 Reasons Why Companies Should Turn to SEO

1. Marketing Budgets Go First – In a not so hot economy, the advertising and marketing budgets or organization are generally the first to get cut. Knowing that your competition is reducing their marketing spend is the exact reason why increasing your marketing efforts will give you a great advantage. Research by American Business Press shows that companies that continue to market themselves during a down economy grow faster than companies that do not.
   
   
2. No Travel Budget for tradeshows - People that might generally attend out of town tradeshows to scope out new products and services find that their travel budgets have disappeared and are now having to turn to the internet to do their research. Companies out there that are still in a position to buy, but you need shows up in their search results in order to be given consideration. The way to ensure this is by optimizing your website via SEO.
   
   
3. Maximize Your Current Website Investment - “Buy” Instead of “Rent” – With limited budgets it’s important that you laser focus any current and new initiatives, targeting only those tactics that will give you the very best return on investment. One of those most impactful tools available is SEO. By optimizing your career website, you are no longer renting your job traffic from the job boards; you are investing in a long term solution that will allow you to take ownership of the search engine job seeker traffic that was rightfully yours in the first place.

Companies that adapt to the changing conditions will survive and grow. Your business won’t grow by staying stagnant. Investing in SEO now will give you the best chance at pulling ahead of your competition in the future.

The Waiting Game of SEO

SEO is like any other form of marketing; it is a long term strategy that should be a permanent part of how you operate your business online. SEO is not a “quick fix”, if you’re success depends on immediate search engine visibility; you should be looking at Pay-Per-Click (PPC) strategies and not SEO.

SEO Requires Patience

When undertaking an SEO project, one thing to remember is that you will not see results overnight; SEO takes time to ramp up. How much time is dependent on many factors including:

• How Old is your Career Site URL?
  The older your website domain (URL) is the more trustworthy it is considered in the eyes of the search engines. If your career site has been around a while and has quality content that is useful to search engine users it will take less time to ramp up then a newly established domain.
  
  
• How Search Engine Friendly was your site before?
  If your career website had technical barriers that we’re previously stopping the search engine spiders from accessing your content, often you are able to see results fairly quickly. Keep in mind visibility increases over time and continued optimization efforts.
  
  
• Does your career site have Inbound Links ?
  Links from other topical related sites pointing to your career site count as votes of confidence in the eyes of search engines. The more you have, the more trust your website has. Search engine trust is a big factor in visibility.
  
  
• How competitive are the phrases you’re targeting?
  The more competitive a target phrase is, the longer you will likely have to wait to see results. It also means the more inbound links and content you will probably need. Your goal is to start with phrases that candidates use to search but have modest competition. If you’re hoping to achieve visibility for something as broad as “Jobs” it is unlikely to happen through SEO.

• Who are Your Competitors and What Are They Doing?
  You want to put yourself in a position where your SEO efforts are comparable to that of your competitors with an end goal of going above and beyond what they’re doing. For example; if your competitors are optimizing for the phrase “Minnesota Registered Nurse Job” and their website has 1,000 inbound links and 40 pages of content, we’ll need to work toward that goal in order to be able to compete for visibility.

Before starting any SEO or SEM strategy be sure to research your service provider. There is no barrier to entry for search marketing professionals which makes it very easy for someone to say they are an "expert" when that may not be the case.

In our industry we are used to using search engines to our advantage to research potential candidates it only makes sense that we would do the same for our potential service providers.

Generating More Candidates for Less - Indeed vs. Google PPC

Given the current economy, everyone needs to generate more applicants at less cost. As companies and recruiters scale back on job boards and newspaper advertising, they look to search marketing initiatives to deliver results.

This week's Wall Street Journal article on recruitment SEM specifically shows how mainstream it's becoming, comparing the cost per applicant in actual dollars vs. print and job boards.

The question that staffing heads often ask me is where they should invest their recruitment Pay-Per-Click (PPC) dollars. Mainstream search engines like Google or Yahoo, or vertical engines like Indeed? My response 99% of the time is “it depends”: as with any search marketing channel, the answer comes through testing. Each client is unique and so are their results.

Read my full Post on the JobMachine Blog - Here