How To Increase Client & Candidate Website Conversions

I’d rather have one interview & one placement each week than 10 interviews and no placements each week. Converting is crucial! 

So let’s break down the key metrics we’ll need to consider. Who do you want to attract? What actions do you want website visitors to take? How do you measure a conversion? Is it a candidate sending across their CV via your contact form or applying to a specific role? Is it a new or existing client sending a message via your contact page or messaging the team about a potential brief? Work out your success metrics first and then go from there. 

Your Audience 

First of all, who are you trying to attract? For example if you run a recruitment agency that specialises in sourcing sales people for media owners then ensure your visitors are either media sales candidates or media owners looking to hire advertising sales people. Having the HR Director of an advertising agency is going to be pretty useless for you as you don’t recruit for roles in that particular area. Make it clear what your recruitment agency does and the areas you recruit for.  

SEO

To ensure clients & candidates reach out to us via our website we have to make sure they can find our website first. Ensure your website has been developed with SEO in mind from the very basic level of the HTML template up to carrying relevant content with optimised keywords. It’s about making continual technical changes to your recruitment website, making it easy for search engines to read and providing useful content that candidates & clients need and want to read. Determine the keywords your audience will use and integrate them into your website and copy. 

Analyse This

To increase our conversion rates we’re going to need to know what our current conversion rates are. Make sure your recruitment agency website has a Google Analytics 4 integration and you’re able to track traffic levels and page visits on your site. It’ll be hard to improve your conversion rate without this data first. This data will help us to understand our clients’ & candidates' preferences better and discover the reason users leave our site.

Do Looks Really Matter? 

Yes they do when it comes to websites! When new clients & candidates land on your website they want to be impressed. They’re much more likely to reach out to you if your website looks modern and is well designed, rather than a dated website from 10 years ago. 

Call To Actions

Each page should have a call to action, directing the user to a specific action. That could be an “Apply” button on an individual job post or could be a link to the contact page from the candidates page or a “Submit a Brief” button on the client pages. Try to limit the number of CTAs you include on each page to just one or two. You should aim to take your candidates & clients through a specific journey, for example a link for the candidates page on the home page, the candidate page could then link to the jobs page and the jobs page will encourage the candidate to apply for a specific role or could link through to the contact page. 

Your CTAs should be simple, compelling, clear and concise, limited to a few words.

Buttons

People prefer pushing buttons rather than clicking links! While trawling search engines for what we need it makes sense to use hyperlinks but when we’re on an actual website we want to use buttons over links. Use contrasting, bold colours and a clear, easily readable font for accessibility purposes and ensure you consider how the buttons look on mobile devices - is there enough space for the user to easily finger tap it? 

Application Process

It’s absolutely paramount to list all of your open vacancies on your website to ensure you have the highest percentage chance of converting candidates. Beyond this, streamline the application process to make it easy and user-friendly. There have been dozens of times where I’ve dropped out of an application process (normally with direct employers rather than recruitment agencies) because the application process is just too damn long and because they ask me again for information that is already listed on my CV.  Eliminate unnecessary steps and reduce form fields to minimise friction - only ask for the information you need, you’ll probably just need their CV. Also offer the option to “Apply with LinkedIn” to simplify the process further.

Mobile First 

As mentioned several times previously in our blog posts - your website should be designed mobile first with the desktop version developed hereafter. Users are more likely to search for jobs on their mobile devices over their desktops. As a previous job seeker myself, I’d use my laptop to search for a job while at home with the TV on in the background and I’d use my mobile to look for jobs while on the commute or on my lunch breaks.  

If your website isn’t mobile friendly, users are likely to navigate away and move on to your competitors’ sites. 

Testimonials

How many times have you come across a product that suits your needs on a site like Amazon but it had minimal reviews? What did you do? You likely navigated away onto a product that had 100+ reviews. When people are making purchase decisions i.e. choosing a product or service, they need their hand to be held, they need to trust you, they need to know they’re making the right decision. 

Use client & candidate testimonials to persuade users that you’re the right recruitment agency for them. 

Pop-ups

Pop-ups are a divisive subject in the world of website design & development. They include the likes of welcome pop-ups, leave intent pop-ups, timed pop-ups, click pop-ups and top (half) of the page pop-ups. I’m firmly in the camp that finds them annoying and I personally don’t like including them on websites. I find them spammy, annoying, or irrelevant. Marketers are more likely to support them as they don’t sometimes persuade users to stay on a site. If used well they aren’t necessarily intrusive and can help guide users. 

In my opinion if a user is reading relevant content then they shouldn’t be distracted from that and likewise if they’ve made a decision to navigate away from your website then you shouldn’t be stopping them and begging them to stay. 

Tidy Up

Make sure you declutter. Provide your audience with relevant information but you don’t want to overwhelm candidates & clients with a cluttered page. As internet userts we like to work our way through websites, which are clean and minimalistic websites. 

Contact Page

Not usually rated as but it’s probably one of the most important pages on your website. Remember this is the point where candidates send you that CV that is absolutely perfect for that role you’re recruiting for right now or where that huge client first got in touch with you. Does your contact page work as it should? Is your contact form fully functioning and are your contact details (address, telephone, email, etc.) all up to date? I’ve come across several recruitment firms while pitching for business where they’ve moved out of the office address they list on their website or where their telephone line is dead or just rings out. If candidates & clients can’t reach you then how are you going to convert them? Your email, telephone and address links should also be clickable links, it makes it so much easier for the end users, which means more conversions for you. 

Your contact form also shouldn’t ask for too much information, just the basic info you need to make first contact, such as name, email, telephone and CV/brief. Ensure the contact form is mobile responsive too. 

Social Media

Conversions aren’t always receiving a CV or a brief, sometimes they’re the fledgling roots of users really engaging with your agency. Make sure you carry links to your social media profiles in the footer of your website and on the contact page at the very least. 

Speed

Slow page loading is one of the biggest reasons why people navigate away from a website and fail to convert. Ensure your website is fast and candidates & clients aren’t left waiting around. 

Content & Images 

Your content needs to be compelling, persuasive, clear & concise (this includes job descriptions, candidate & client pages). Tell clients & candidates what you do and why you’re so good at it. Images should be relevant and ideally of you, your team and offices - it makes it so much easier for your users to relate, which in turn increases the numbers of conversions. 

Video 

Very similar to the above but I felt as though it needed its own section. On average, websites that use video content have a 4.8% conversion rate, compared to 2.9% for websites that don’t carry video. Mobile users are 3 times more likely to watch a video than desktop users. As users tend to use their mobiles over desktops more when looking for a new role then video will likely become even more important moving forward in keeping clients & candidates engaged. 

In conclusion of course you want high levels of traffic being funnelled to your website but you want relevant traffic more than just general traffic and subsequently it’s crucial for that relevant traffic to convert into something tangible like a CV or a job brief!