Kevin O’Brien — March 24, 2017 It’s no secret that first impressions matter, and a website is often the first vehicle for interaction with a client or candidate. Ultimately, your website will say if you’re an experienced and trusted staffing partner, or a fly-by-night company looking to push bodies through doors and reach numerical goals in a spreadsheet.
Each year, America’s staffing companies hire nearly 16 million temporary and contract employees. If your website says the right things about you, then a large part of that pie could be yours.
Does It Quickly Say What You Do?
The average attention span is only eight seconds. With so many distractions at our fingertips in the digital age, a staffing website must deliver essential information rapidly or risk losing traffic to another Google search result.
It’s a test you can ask any friend to participate in. Have them pull up your home page, and after eight seconds ask them what they remember from it. Did they catch what industries, types of roles, or other services you specialize in? Can they say what sets you apart from a generic staffing agency? Do they know if you’ve won any major staffing awards?
If your staffing website doesn’t quickly pinpoint what you do, then clients and candidates will expect that same confusing experience when working with you. Needless to say, a long, rambling, relationship is not something you want to portray.
Is It Accurate?
Your staffing website is no place to embellish or make exaggerated claims. Naturally, you want to portray your organization in the best light, but accuracy cannot be sacrificed. Luring people in with false promises or made up statistics and testimonials will only cause harm when those leads fizzle out and tell their friends (and the world via social media). Only 48% of staffing agencies consistently record candidate satisfaction, and making promises you can’t deliver on is a big reason why.
When it comes to clients, they want to know that you can solve their talent shortage problem that numerous industries currently face. With 61% of staffing leaders also pointing to talent shortage as a top concern, it is an impossible proposition to completely solve such a deeply-rooted problem. Your goal is to show that you can alleviate the severity of this issue for a client, not claim you have a magic button that can solve all their worries in one fell swoop.
Accurately portray your business by focusing on your strengths. If you don’t have testimonials from those you work with, focus on getting them from clients and candidates as you move forward. Above all, never make a timeline claim that you can’t fulfill. Spending a little extra time to place a candidate or fill a client’s role is understandable if you can provide top talent in today’s competitive job landscape.
Does It Provide Value?
Are you providing tangible value to potential clients and talent that visit your website, or is it just one big sales pitch? Providing interesting content can take many forms and is a great way to build a relationship where clients and candidates seek out and look forward to your content as it helps them move forward in their respective goals.
Blogs are a chief platform for sharing valuable information that can be optimized for SEO and are proven to increase web traffic. Longer pieces of content such as eBooks and salary guides can likewise help you gain the trust of website visitors. Content such as this shows hard proof of your expertise, whether in staffing or in certain industries. You’re not only portrayed as a trusted source for information, but are top-of-mind when they need a staffing partner.
Does It Humanize You?
We’ve seen every kind of staffing website you can imagine, and the least-effective ones all have one commonality: they fail to humanize their organization. To thrive in 2017 and beyond, a staffing firm cannot simply settle for surviving, but must concentrate on evolving. Do you treat your social media accounts as an extension of your website, providing links on your homepage and synchronizing the content you share on your blog? Do you share company news, updates, or feature an employee of the month?
Focusing on these areas increases engagement with candidates and clients alike. It’s proof that there are real people behind the names and trademark symbols, and shows that you care about those that work with you. Placing confidence in a recruiter that has just been featured for winning an award is far easier than putting trust into a faceless email address.
What Does Your Staffing Website Say About You?
Think of your staffing website as a modern-day billboard on the information superhighway. When web traffic comes driving by, you need to be able to grab attention, maintain their focus, and convince them to take the nearest exit on the way to building a mutually-beneficial relationship with you. Asking what your website says about you is yet another question that staffing firms fail to ask, and it can make a tremendous difference.
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