It’s becoming widely accepted that the future of the web is Mobile. If much of recruitment is dependent upon the web now then the future of recruitment is also Mobile.
The question for recruiters now is – “how do clients, candidates and prospective employees find my mobile site and before the competition?”
I recently read a couple of fantastic articles by Sherwood Stranieri of Skypromote and Bryson Meunier of Resolution Media, which explored the difference between Mobile & Desktop SEO.
Meunier starts with an interesting point very relevant to the many recruiters I’ve recently been in discussions with this about. Apps vs. Mobile websites.
At 4MAT we currently believe that the importance of having a mobile recruitment website outweighs that of an app for most recruitment agencies. This is particularly the case when the recruitment agency is not particularly well known. A jobseeker may download an app from a huge brand they’re aware of such as a Hays or Adecco. However, is a job seeker really going to download an app for every recruitment agency they speak to?
As Stranieri also notes:
“Some analysts are coming around to the mobile Web, but too many companies greenlight mobile apps without understanding that even the most visible iPhone app only reaches 7% of the mobile population”
Should the candidate have engaged with an agency and then searched for them on their mobile, the importance of having an excellent mobile website and mobile SEO is paramount.
So do all the same rules apply for my mobile SEO as my desktop SEO? Meunier contends not:
“there are nuances and differences in optimizing mobile sites that don’t apply to desktop sites, and some that apply more to mobile sites than they do to desktop sites”
There are many of these differences, such as Google’s separate mobile algorithms, which can be looked at in further detail. We’ll look at one of these now:
Consider a mobile website. From a designer’s point of view, content should be sacrificed where possible to enhance the aesthetic and simplicity on a small screen. Users will appreciate fast-loading pages, with concise navigation and minimal scrolling. Brevity is best.
However from an SEO point of view we know that the need for keyword-rich optimised content exists. As Stranieri points out though, brevity and keyword optimised content don’t need to be mutually exclusive. It all depends where the content is on the mobile website. A minimal concise home page yes, but internal; pages can help drive the SEO as shown in Stranieri’s ESPN example:
So for now we’re still in the infancy of mobile recruitment but those who grasp Mobile recruitment websites and SEO and utlise it best effectively are the future of online recruitment.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Stranieri:
“First position matters even more in mobile. That’s true whether you’re talking about search results or ad positions. The digital shelf gets really small on the mobile screen! A drop from first to fourth position on mobile phone can mean a CTR drop off of more than 90%.”
Useful Links and Important reading:
1) Google’s Zero Moment of Truth ebook
2) Sherwood Stranieri - Skypromote, an SEO agency in Boston and NYC, and has been doing search since 1998. Twitter @SherwoodSEO.
The Mobile Content Dilemma: Brevity Vs. Optimization
http://searchengineland.com/the-mobile-content-dilemma-brevity-vs-optimization-68964
3) Bryson Meunier - Director of Content Solutions at Resolution Media, and a primary architect of Resolution Media's natural search product and Digital Behavior Analysis. Twitter @BrysonMeunier
What’s The Difference Between Mobile & Desktop SEO?
http://searchengineland.com/what%E2%80%99s-the-difference-between-mobile-desktop-seo-89862?utm_source=sel&utm_medium=scap&utm_campaign=email
4) Future Of Mobile Conference
http://future-of-mobile.com/london-2011/
