So why is Google so important to your recruiting strategy?

To be able to let Google recruit staff for your business, you obviously need to have your jobs online in the first place, but that's a different story. You then you need to understand that most people find things on the internet by using search engines - they are inherently lazy and just won't put the url's in!! Ten years ago Google had no users, today it has over three quarters of the UK search traffic (see below). People will use a search engine to find your products, services or your jobs.

Therefore,it stands to reason that with so much market share in the UK, you have to make sure that you have made sure you are doing everything you can, to make the Google spiders like your website. So how do you do that?

The Search Engine Share of Searches for 2007 according to Hitwise are:
Google: 78%
Yahoo: 8%
Ask: 5%
MSN Live: 6%
Other: 3%

So with so much dependency on Google for search engine visitors, you need to understand how it works.

Google uses an algorithm to decide what appears at the top of the search page – and the main criteria within that algorithm is usefulness to the reader. It decides the usefulness of the site from the content of the page and the contextualised linking on the site. Contextualised linking is when somebody links to your site who is talking about similar things to you on yours. So, if you have a site that sells training courses, a contextual link would be from another site recommending your site as a good source of training course.

Content is king; the better the content and the more innovative the product, the more people will link to it and the whole thing becomes a virtuous circle. You need to look at what people are searching for and make sure that it’s reflected in the content of your site, and then engage with your customers and suppliers and get them to link to you so that you become an authority.
Brands are also having problems building sites that grab Google’s attention. The big brands are being overtaken by smaller companies that have built sites that are good for searches, are innovative and get people’s attention, which goes to show that with Google size does not matter!