We’ve been utilizing pay-per-click advertising for awhile now, and it’s just becoming too expensive. We want to take some of that money and optimize our site to get more free traffic instead.
This is how most of my sales calls begin.
A little history: Pay-per-click advertising was the bomb when it first hit the scene. One cent clicks and little competition has a way of making marketers happy, I guess. My how things have changed.
Fast forward to today: PPC advertising is a vicious cycle. More competition means higher prices and around we go. Practically every job site is in the game. Add to that the fact more and more employers will enter the fray over the next few years as more agencies get on board and Google hits the conference circuit, and you’ve got a recipe for writing the engines some mighty big checks.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan as long as it makes sense. “Sense” as defined by return on investment. Which is where it gets even stickier: If your business sells a pair of shoes worth $X, then it’s fairly easy to make sure you’re not spending more than you should in advertising. With resumes, in contrast, not so easy. A nursing resume doesn’t have the same value as an entry level admin candidate. Can tracking be done pretty well? In the hands of a pro, yes, but employers have a hard enough time understanding PPC, let alone how to track it. (By and large, ATS provider’s don’t get it either, but that’s a separate post.)
My best answer: SEO.
Over the past few years, I have weened myself and my clients off pay-per-click advertising to a large extent. Search engine optimization isn’t sexy, quick or typically easy. It’s not guaranteed. But done correctly, it’s the best ROI around, by far. If asked would I rather spend $10,000 on SEO vs. PPC, SEO wins hands down.
If you haven’t already, checkout the recent interview with Indeed’s Rony Kahan. It’s very telling that in the same interview which he touts SEO being a big part of Indeed’s traffic, he also recommends going PPC/CPC for any job board start-up business models. Not surprisingly, I’m beginning to hear rustling from job boards who advertise on Indeed, complaining about the costs. In the employment space, optimizing your job descriptions for verticals like Indeed, as opposed to paying them every month for clicks, will become more and more appealing.
So go ahead and keep giving your money to Google, Yahoo, MSN, Indeed, Simply Hired and the rest of the engines every month. Just make sure you’re watching what it’s getting you. My bet is SEO will begin to look more and more appealing with each automatic monthly payment.
March 21st, 2007 at 8:58 am
Great post Joel!! With PPC, the investment you make today is gone tomorrow. SEO investment has a much longer shelf life. I would also make a comparison of SEO to PPC as being similar to PR vs. Advertising. Organic rankings are perceived to be more relevant in many cases.
March 21st, 2007 at 9:58 am
You’re right Doug, PPC is a spend not an investment like SEO. I think recruiters especially are going to have to mine the long tail more and more to get a good ROI. The clever advertisers are already doing it, but more are going to have to try.
March 21st, 2007 at 10:23 am
Joel,
It’s a thought-provoking post, but I think you should be encouraging your clients to invest in both SEM and SEO. Both of these marketing strategies typically offer fabulous return on investment when well executed, particularly when compared with online alternatives.
With regard to PPC advertising on Indeed, our client retention rates are excellent, which I think is a much better gauge of satisfaction and ROI than any anecdotal ‘rustling’ you may have heard.
Paul
CEO, Indeed
March 21st, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Joel,
No question companies should focus on a solid SEO strategy, AND couple it with a competent SEM strategy. Keyword “competent”, someone with the tools and experience that won’t be bidding on the term “jobs”. The two create a powerful combination, SEO takes time and trust, SEM is now and flexible with a companies growing needs.
Chad
March 21st, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Oh yea I forgot - (Insert HRSEO plug here)
March 21st, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Its interesting that someone who owns a SEO company would say that SEO is the way to go. He might be right, but o those readying this…make sure you understand your source’s motives.
March 21st, 2007 at 4:32 pm
I’m currently studying to become Google certified in ppc. I’m scheduled to take the test in April.
March 21st, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Nick Roy…that’s great. Its relevant how?
March 21st, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Spot on Joel; I can’t believe more people are talking about this…
We’re over in London, and have been pretty much at the forefront here of getting organisations (job boards, recruitment agencies, direct employers) to use PPC to drive recruitment traffic. However, exactly the same thing has started to happen in the UK - what was once genuinely innovative / cost effective is becoming less so by the day. Fewer people have cottoned onto Overture/Yahoo - so the costs are less inflated - but the inventories just don’t make it as compelling a proposition as Adwords.
SEO (particularly if paired with a cogent blogging strategy) is undoubtedly the way forward - but it’s such a headache for all the reasons you mention..
I guess the question in my mind is: what’s going to be the next *bomb*? One big advantage of consulting over here is that we get a 6 month head start by listening to the conversation over there :)
P
March 21st, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Joel
The other point is that a lot of employer sites are written by ad agencies who just want to win awards for their use of flash and flowery words plus the ATS vendors technology does not allow the jobs to be indexed. This leaves the employer with limited SEO options and have to rely on SEM. In many cases even a direct search e.g. working at Employer Name doesn’t see them in the results page!!
I agree that SEO is needed over the long term but as we know, it all takes time…….
March 21st, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Good read. Though, when considering PPC in the context of the job search vertical, I wouldn’t say that PPC is a ‘vicious cycle.’
Job search is, in large part, a local activity & local recruitment-related keyword inventory is less competitive than consumer keywords. So, early adopting Recruiters have in PPC, an opportunity to maximize returns that may be bigger than their counter-parts in different departments.
In other words, SEM for consumer leads should not be used to pitch or put down SEM for recruitment leads. Two different beasts.
Regarding SEO…HRSEO…if you will…yes SEO is a very important long term strategy.
But if you need to connect TOMORROW with EVERYONE searching ‘Java’ in your LOCAL area, then geo-targeted PPC is an awesome tool to have at your disposal.
To those above…
Doug,
I would disagree 1000% percent. A PPC investment is not gone tomorrow. Are you aware of the value that PPC brings to employer branding efforts? That value is def. not short-term.
Kelvin,
There are plenty of people out there who have spent very well with PPC and made some pretty bad ‘investments,’ in SEO.
Chad,
I got nothing. (…Danm that Chad…he’s good.)
Steve,
I think a little self-promotion in between valuable content is just fine. Considering the number of comments, it’s obviously, thought-provoking self promotion. I am by no means someone who would go out of their way to stick up for Joel. I too am a self-promoter but I think that’s ok if you earn the right by providing some valuebel service.
Nick, Good luck.
Paul, ‘spot on?’ com’on
Peter, Agreed. SEO is needed as ATS technology is week.
March 21st, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Joel, great topic. We currently spend dollars on Simply Hired, Indeed, Go Jobs, Top USA Jobs, Google and others, and quite frankly, it is getting out of hand. We look at the corporate card and are amazed at how much money these PPC and PPA (pay per applicant) programs are costing us. 5 years ago, we’d spend $9K for a billboard and hope we get some good brand, and now, we spend $9K, get 18,000 visitors to the site at $.50 a pop. The funny thing is that with many of the VSE’s, the boards don’t even get much branding for the clicks we pay for. The jobseeker searches on Indeed, finds a JobCircle job, clicks on the Indeed link to be sent to JobCircle to read it, and then they hit the back button to go back to Indeed. Where’s the strategic value in the .25 I just paid indeed for that click? Do I get any brand out of it? Any residual value? So now, instead of the $9K that gave me the nice pretty billboard on the highway, I get $9K of jobseekers that don’t have any relationship with our site, and I get no long term strategic benefit for the clicks I just paid for.
We’re trying to get smarter on how we manage and monitor these campaigns, but it can be quite labor intensive to consistently manage, monitor, and adjust our spending to make sure we’re getting the best conversions for the buck. We’re developing better tracking mechanisms so that I can compare traffic quality of all of our vendors, and make sure I’m getting the most value out of our campaigns. Additionally, as the big budget sites continue to drive up the cost of keywords, these programs will only get more and more expensive. And that is not even considering the recent questions about fraudulent click generation and other hazards of the business.
Job boards want two things from a PPC campaign - resumes in the database and applicants to our customers’ jobs. Right now, Indeed simply provides search results with a link to the job on the job board. Why not show the jobseeker the entire job description on Indeed, then when the applicant wants to apply, charges me twice as much? I’d rather pay much more for an applicant than a click. Not to mention, the added benefit of having the entire job displayed on Indeed allows them to sell embedded keyword advertising throughout the job description (more revenue for them). GadBall is a good example of a site that has a reverse model to the PPC’s who drive traffic to a job board - a PPR (pay per resume). If you send me 500 resumes a day of jobseekers that have voluntarily indicated that they want their resume inserted into our site, now we’re talking. Now I’ve got 500 jobseekers with whom I can build relationships with, sell things to, invite to job fairs, and give them exposure to hundreds of employers.
There are some really interesting models out there, and it is gonna be fun to see how it all plays out. Thanks for the discussion.
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:58 am
Joel - an interesting topic. As you know, SEO has worked for us and we continue to invest in it. However, we consider SEO to be part of multiple potential investment options.
For our recruitment process outsourcing business, it is not either SEO or PPC only. We’re evaluating print, radio, job fairs, job boards, resume banks, referral software tools, good old fashioned referrals, guys with sandwich boards, and traditional networking. For example, PPC may be a much better investment than running a print ad in the Sunday job section. We’ll get the same potential traffic at a fraction of the cost. And, we can track results better. In terms of candidate quality and the cost to get the candidate, we know that good old fashioned referrals beat the internet. The internet beats print and radio. The jury is still out on software referral systems.
In our view, both SEO and PPC provide solid returns to our investment. They solve different questions for us.
March 29th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Although I am not one to chime in on Joel’s thoughts, figured I should throw my $.02 in to make sure employers hear both sides, as Joel tends to leave one out more often than not.
Without a doubt SEO is important; however, if you are unable to drive qualified traffic to the site you just invested your dollars into, then the true value is never truly unlocked, which is why SEM AND SEO are both necessary to compliment one another. It is not about finding that one medium to source talent, but rather discovering what marketing mix works best for that organization. Second, SEO rarely works overnight, or ever, in many cases and drilling down to ROI using SEO is something of a mystery. SEM can be started in a matter of minutes with actual ROI metrics to back it up. Yes, the costs are slowly increasing as they have across other verticals like retailers, entertainment, finance, etc..yet those industries who adopted search way before recruitment continue to thrive using cpc even as costs have gone up, so there should be plenty of time before that starts to impact this late-to-market vertical when it comes to search. And yes, much of that analysis is put back to the company and their tracking mechanisms, but it is more than achievable through tools like Google Analytics (if Joel can promote his, I’ll throw a shameless plug in for us).
It is interesting that for someone who has been so pro-Google, Yahoo and search in general as an alternative to job boards, would be so quick and abrupt in dismissing search completely and supporting SEO. Then again, it is your blog, so promote what you would like…But what do I know…I only for Google.
March 15th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Has anyone out there heard about WideCircles.com. It seems like a way better service then wasting money on PPC. Apparently they are using refering websites ( forums, blogs, wiki, etc. ) and have a viral word of mouth distributed approach to it. My friend told me he got around 100 visits from single post which cost him $0.40c. I am going to give them a try today . In case you are intrested here is it. http://widecircles.com?s=imt1