Driving visitors to your website and increasing page views is one thing. Getting those visitors to take a desired action is another entirely. On a recruitment website, that action might be to apply for a job, register for job alerts, contact the agency, or subscribe to a newsletter or blog. Increasing website conversions is crucial to reaching the goals you have for your website.
1. Include a call to action on every page
An effective call-to-action (CTA) drives conversions. Research conducted by marketing strategists Vye found that the average click-through rate (CTR) for a CTA is 4.23% – that’s better than the CTR for Google ads. Without including CTAs on your website the opportunity to direct users on the path you wish them to take through your website and perform the necessary actions is lost. Think of CTAs as signposts, helping users to navigate through your website and urging them to perform specific actions. However, because CTAs are action-led, don’t include too many on a page or you will overwhelm and confuse users, potentially resulting in no clicks at all. One or two CTAs per page is ideal.
The perfect CTA should be persuasive, compelling, clear and concise. It should do one or more of the following – offer benefits, lead to immediate results (of some kind), rouse curiosity and evoke emotion, create urgency, and be placed intuitively on the page. CTAs may use simple design elements and few words but they contain within them the power to convert visitors into clients or applicants – a mighty feat for a single button.
2. Make buttons easy to read and click
Firstly, it’s important to note that button CTAs consistently perform better than hyperlinks. Keep to the general rule that buttons do something, links go somewhere and the purpose of interaction remains consistent. Keeping CTAs in a button format makes them easily distinguishable as a clickable CTA.
The design of all CTA buttons must stand out and be easy to click or tap, something that is particularly essential on a mobile device (more on that below). Use contrasting, bold colours, clear text and ensure there is enough white space around it to easily finger tap. Revealed in a case study on its website, testing platform VWO found that decreasing the amount of clutter and distractions around the CTA on a client’s homepage increased the conversion rate by 232%. Always make it easy for your users.
3. Optimise your website for mobile
Statista has found that the number of smartphone subscriptions in the world currently stands at 6.64 billion, meaning 83.37% of the global population owns a smartphone. The World Advertising Research Center predicts that by 2025, 72% of all internet users will solely use smartphones to access the internet. Mobile traffic to recruitment websites is also growing. RecWebs’ 2020 Recruitment Website Trends Benchmark Report found that 43% of users accessed recruitment websites from mobile devices – more than double the number recorded during the previous year.
And yet not all websites are mobile optimised. In an age where we all use our mobiles and tablets to browse the internet on the go, it is vital that websites are optimised for small screens and compatible with the most popular browser and operating systems used by those devices. If your website is not user friendly for those on mobile devices, they won’t bother hanging around and not only will they not convert but they’re unlikely to return. RecWebs uses responsive design for all its websites, so that the layout responds to the size of the screen accessing it. Images, text and other elements will grow or shrink to fit the space so users are far more likely to stick around and convert.
4. Add client and candidate testimonials
The power of a third-party review in converting a visitor to your website into a client or registered candidate is undeniable. By including testimonials on your website, you are effectively helping potential clients make a decision and feel confident about that choice, knowing that others have done just that and benefited from it. That is social proofing – establishing trust and confidence in visitors to your website via third party influence.
We’re all influenced by others, it’s human nature, and it makes sense to harness that in business. Don’t be afraid to ask a client for a testimonial. The more testimonials you have showcasing the different sides of your business, the varying services you offer, and the range of clients and candidates you can help, the better. Your happy clients and candidates can be your best sales tool. Where should you place them? A stand-alone page for testimonials allows website visitors to immediately check out your credentials and can be used as a CTA on other pages. Testimonials can also be peppered throughout the other pages on your website as supporting copy. Include them at the bottom of a page, next to pricing or by a claim in your copy.
5. Consider leave intent pop ups
Pop-ups are a divisive subject in the world of website design. Some feel there is no place for them as they can annoy visitors, others value their use as a conversion tactic and as a way to help direct visitors to perform an action that will be useful to them. We encourage their use on recruitment websites as a way to grab attention and as a valuable prompt to encourage conversion but we do advise caution.
The type of pop-up chosen and the way they are used is critical. Leave intent pop-ups will only appear when the user is about to leave the page. The advantage of this approach is that you are not breaking a user’s focus whilst they are viewing your content. You are simply offering them something they may have missed before but that would be valuable to them – and it is made all the more valuable because it has context now that they have (hopefully) absorbed some of your content.
There are numerous ways leave intent pop-ups can be used to good effect on recruitment websites. For example, a candidate may visit your jobs page but is about to leave before applying. This is the perfect time for a leave intent pop-up encouraging them to register for job alerts. If you want to encourage more users to subscribe for content updates or a newsletter, consider a leave intent pop-up for your blog page. Other examples include leave intent pop-ups for courses, guides and surveys. It’s important to remember not to enable more than one pop-up on the same page as this will ultimately destroy the user experience and users could click away rather than clicking to convert. Caution must also be exercised on mobile devices – a ‘non-intrusive overlay’ that only displays half the pop-up so that it can easily be dismissed is advised.
And finally… ensure your contact page is up to date
This should be obvious but it’s surprising how often this gets missed following a move or other business alteration. Your contact page is hugely valuable. It’s where potential clients and candidates can begin the first lines of communication with you, where the journey from website visitor to client or registered candidate might begin. Your contact page is where you can solidly make those conversions. It is also crucial from an SEO point of view, particularly for local recruitment agencies where the location may form part of a searcher’s query on search engines. If any of your contact details change, update your contact page immediately or you could end up losing potential clients and candidates. Don’t forget to also tell Google by editing your Business Profile.
All of the above tactics should help but it is important to remember that, in order to increase website conversions, ensuring your goals are clearly defined is a must. What are the top 5 things you want users to do when they visit your website? Keeping those in mind will help you to figure out the marketing strategies for your website. It’s also important to test it yourself – put yourself in the shoes of a potential client or candidate and travel through your website. What compels you to action and what makes you want to click away? Improving those all-important conversion rates is crucial to fulfilling the aims of your website and your business and sometimes all it takes is a few minor changes. Take a step back, analyse what needs to change to encourage users to convert, and start implementing those changes.
