Staffing Robot - Web design and marketing services for companies in the staffing industry

New Site Launched: Advanced Medical

Kyle is a Physical Therapist. He can get a job anywhere. So can you.

 
That's the tagline we used to guide the recent project we just completed with Advanced Medical. And it's not just a tagline. Advanced Medical is a therapy only staffing agency placing traveling therapists all across the country. Their innovation, creativity and embrace of technology has produced tremendous growth for their company over the last few years and things are only going up from here.

This project had a lot of components and enabled us to experiment with some techniques and technologies, thanks to Advanced Medical allowing us the space to be creative and trusting us to deliver.

Updated Brand
We fist updated the Advanced Medical brand. We didn't do a complete rebrand, just changed up some of the styles to give it a cleaner, more modern look. We also presented the brand in additional styles so it could used more universally.

Website
We had several primary goals with Advanced Medical's new site:

• Simply the site while presenting the same/similar information
• Not loose any SEO they've earned over the years
• Create more interaction and engagement

We started with the home page. We cleared most things out of the way so potential candidates could focus on the main thing they're looking for - JOBs! However, if these candidates are looking for more information they can get it quickly with just a click.

 

We then created a custom travel therapy job board and improved the work flow for their candidates. The job board is easy to navigate and presents job options quickly and simply.

We also present Hot Jobs throughout the site that are relevant to the modality or state mentioned on the page.



Advanced Medical does a lot of work with new grads so we made their Therapy New Grad section a primary focus of the site.

Finally, knowing Advanced Medical has a huge focus on customer happiness, so we made it easy for their customers to request travel therapy staff and also intro them to some of the friendly faces they'll be working with at Advanced Medical.

Other highlights of the website include:

• Chat Widget
• Stylized contact forms
• Modal pop up windows
• Job detail pages
• Facebook comments on the blog

Advanced SEO
- What advanced SEO you ask? Well…it's are a secret. But it's awesome. We promise. :-)

Mobile Website
And finally our favorite part of the project. The mobile website! Did we mention we love building mobile websites for staffing companies? No, well, we do. Love. Building. Mobile. Websites!

With this mobile website we used JQTouch. Sweet! JQTouch is an excellent mobile platform that brings the power and interaction of jQuerry to the mobile web. This is the first time we experimented with the platform and we were quite pleased with the results!

The jobs on the mobile website are front and center and we made it easy for potential candidates to find the right job for them by simply selecting the appropriate modality.

Candidates can easily apply for jobs, call Advanced Medical or share any job they want right from their mobile device! Nothing to install and works on every mobile smart phone. FTW!

Check out the new Advanced Medical website and mobile website and let us know what you think! Also watch for more to come with the projects we have coming out with Advanced Medical. Stay tuned!

We are extremely grateful to have the opportunity to work with Advanced Medical. We consistently put out the call asking for customers looking to be innovative with their technology and marketing efforts. Advanced Medical answered.

So now we'll ask again. Innovative customers wanted: Who's next?

 

Will Your Website Be Penalized with Google's New Changes?

 

 

According to a recent panel discussion at SXSW with Google engineer Matt Cutts, Google is planning on penalizing 'overly optimized' sites. Their reasoning?

We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect.

What does this mean for you? In our opinion, it simply validates further the basic rule of SEO we've always advocated for: Worry about engagement, producing great content and getting links back to your site - not obcessing over properly placed keywords. 

With this change, it appears Google is trying to help those out who have great sites and great content but perhaps don't understand all the rules of the SEO game. So, focus on making a great website and keep putting out great content and you'll have nothing to worry about.

Want to build a website that is sure to get found by search engines for your staffing business? Get in touch with us and we'll help you out.

What's Your Staffing Company's Mobile Recruiting Strategy?

Here's a great post about mobile recruiting from the Recruiters Lounge blog. In this post, Jim Stroud chats with Michael Marlatt about mobile recruiting.

The 3 biggest take aways we got from the video:

• Be sure your recipients have opted in to your campaigns
• Have a clear Call To Action - confirm a job, download information, fill out a form, etc.
• Be sure your sending them to a page that has been optimized for mobile. This one is perhaps the most important. Texting your candidates and bringing the a page that hasn't been optimized for mobile = serious fail.

What's your mobile recruiting strategy? If you don't have one we should talk. Contact us and we can discuss your mobile recruiting strategy and optimizing your web presence for mobile.

Staffing Robot Launches First Mobile Website for Healthcare Staffing Industry with Medical Solutions

Over the last couple of months we've been working on a large project with one of the leading staffing agencies in the healthcare staffing industry. The project has been incredibly difficult to keep secret because we knew the work we were doing was going to really push things forward in the industry. And we had a blast doing it! Well finally, were able to announce the results of the project.

Staffing Robot has built and delivered the first mobile website in the healthcare staffing industry! Medical Solutions hired us a few months ago for the purposes of rebranding and improving their existing website. During that process we also worked with them to create a mobile version of their site to deliver a better and more appropriate experience to mobile based users. The site is the first of its kind for the healthcare staffing industry.

As a web development and services company for the healthcare staffing industry, Staffing Robot works with clients of all sizes and budgets. However, we're constantly seeking out innovative clients that are leaders in the space and willing to try new things. Medical Solutions fit this description perfectly. Medical Solutions recognized the opportunity presented by delivering their services in a mobile environment, and they stepped up to the challenge of delivering that solution.

The new mobile website helps Medical Solutions provide their clients and healthcare professionals easy access through their mobile devices, to the most popular and relevant services of their website medicalsolutions.com. The mobile website looks and performs like any phone app found on most smart phones, with the key difference being that it is accessed via the web, not through any specific device or platform. That means whether you have an iPhone, Android, iPad or Blackberry - the site's features and functions are available to you.

The mobile site provides quick, convenient access to key information such as a newly designed job search for travel nurses, easy nurse job application format, educational and testimonial videos for travelers, travel nursing news and announcements, and important information about Medical Solutions. 

In addition, Staffing Robot also built a new 'desktop' website for Medical Solutions. A visitor to the site is automatically given either the desktop or the mobile experience based on whether they access the site with a desktop computer or a mobile device. The new Medical Solutions website puts the healthcare travelers front and center by letting them talk about their experiences of being a travel nurse. Healthcare travelers that want to participate on the site can create an account at medicalsolutions.com or sign up with their Facebook credentials. All visitors can now simply navigate through the site to find helpful information related to their medical profession or client service needs. The newly designed healthcare job search also allows those interested in travel nursing to quickly find interesting assignments in any location and profession they choose. 

The final component to our work with Medical Solutions was in developing their new brand identity. This identity included the creation of a new logo mark, typeface, color palette and visual elements that represent the diversity and individuality Medical Solutions promotes. The new brand identity is designed to better reflect Medical Solutions customer first mentality, built on a continuing history of innovative ideas and services that meet the needs of traveling healthcare professionals as well as hospitals and other healthcare facilities. 

The most satisfaction Staffing Robot gets from a project like this is knowing our clients are satisfied.

Being able to outsource our website development to Staffing Robot has freed us to think more strategically while remaining focused on our day to day objectives," said Dale Williams, Medical Solutions co-founder. "We needed a company that understood our audience and our industry, and could assist us with the technical challenges of a project this size. I couldn't be more pleased with our choice to partner with Staffing Robot on this endeavor.

We're incredibly excited to watch Medical Solutions grow and see all the success we know they'll have with their new ability to connect with their audience via mobile devices. And, we're very excited to have had the opportunity to help bring such a solution to the healthcare staffing industry as a whole.

Check out their new site and give it a try. Our favorite thing to do is to first view it on your desktop computer, and then go to the same site on your mobile phone for a completely separate experience! Take a look and let us know what you think. You can read our full press release here: first mobile website for the healthcare staffing industy.

So that said, the only question we have now is - who's next? Innovative clients wanted. Please contact us here: CONTACT STAFFING ROBOT.

 

Google Launches Local Business Directories

Looks like Google is launching a new Local Business Directory service. These city based business directories will compete with other similar services such as Yelp, Citysearch, Merchant Circle, etc. These pages are showing up in Google's index so they will definitely be contributing to your rankings. All the more reason why local SEO is a key component to your online marketing efforts!

Here are a few examples of the directories:

Portland

Austin

San Diego

Staffing Robot offers a Local SEO Booster package for healthcare staffing companies that is guaranteed to increase your rankings in the search engines. As Google continues to develop these services, having your healthcare staffing business listed is becoming increasingly more important. If you want more information on this service contact Staffing Robot today!

New SEO Service from Staffing Robot - Local SEO Booster!

At Staffing Robot, we've been helping healthcare staffing agencies across the nation grow their business through proven Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques. Through this work we've discovered a big need that still exists out there for many medical staffing agencies - Local SEO!

If your business depends heavily on local traffic, local SEO tactics are a must. If you're a per diem staffing agency, it's all about local. But even if not, employing some local SEO tactics to your travel staffing companies approach to search marketing will still pay off.

You may not know this but there are over 3 billion local searches performed each month. Many from mobile phones. As customers increasingly choose online Search over things like the Yellow Pages to find a business near them, these numbers will only continue to go up. If you’re not showing up in Google’s local listings, you’re missing out on the majority of your potential search traffic. 

That's why today we're announcing a new service called 'Local SEO Booster!'

If you want to capture a piece of the growing local search market we'll work with you to help increase your local website traffic and conversions. Staffing Robot's Local SEO Booster package will dramatically improve your web marketing efforts.

How do we do it?

In our standard SEO package for healthcare staffing companies we start with an extensive keyword and competitive research process that helps you determine the keywords your staffing company should target and compete on. 

Now, with our Local SEO Booster package for staffing companies we can improve your results even more by:

• Optimizing your Google Places page (have you claimed yours yet?)
• Listing your business with key local directories like CitySearch and Yelp
• We then work with you to incorporate ratings and reviews into your business process

Our Local SEO Booster Package includes:

• Extensive local keyword research to identify relevant target phrases and evaluate existing ones
• Competitive website analysis
• Google Places page optimization
• Site submissions to Yahoo, Bing and other targeted local directories
• Photo and video optimization (includes PhotoShop enhancements and geo-tagging) for all submissions
• A ready-to-go “thank-you” email template or website widget that includes links to top review sites for your company
• $100 of free Google Adwords advertising to boost your traffic

Optional ongoing monthly sevices:

• Keyword opportunity tracking to spot new trends and opportunities
• Local rank tracking reports

Summmary

Optimize the listing for your healthcare staffing company now and get a jump on your competition! Even small improvements in website search optimization can mean huge increases in traffic for you. If you have questions or want to learn more about Staffing Robot's Local SEO Booster package contact us today!

Check out the full press release at www.staffingrobotonline.com. 

Google Gets More Social with +1 Button

Yesterday, Google introduced the +1 Button. This new feature is essentially Google's version of the Facebook Like button.

With +1, people can mark search results that will display to others in your social graph. Clicking the +1 Button adds a count to search results, increasing their social relevancy. Currently users can only see +1 counts from their Google connections (Gmail, Google Reader, Buzz, etc.). However, if this takes off, Google will be well positioned to take this in several directions.

This is a big step in Google's efforts to become more social. The +1 Button is centered around Google Profiles. With this addition, these profiles just got much more social (and useful). Now on your Google Profile, users can keep track of all of their +1s.

Additionally, companies will soon also have the ability to add the +1 Button to their blogs and websites, allowing your visitors to share and recommend your content.

So what does it mean for the Search Engine Optimization efforts of your healthcare staffing company?

1. First of all, if you're still chasing page rank (which you should have stopped doing a couple of years ago) this should be the feature that finally makes you stop. Search is now so relevant to the individual that chasing after page rank is an impossible and loosing game.
2. The strategy to pursue now is to make your business and services offerings social.
3. Create relevant content that will attract +1s and encourage shared content. The web is quickly becoming all about social recommendations. Your efforts with blogging and social content promotion will dramatically increase the probability of your content showing up in relevant search results for the visitors you're trying to attract.

If you don't see this feature in your search results yet it's because it's being rolled out at random in an experimental mode. To participate, go here: http://www.google.com/experimental/. If you're looking to get a +1 Button for your site then go here: https://services.google.com/fb/forms/plusonesignup/.

Below is a video with Google's explanation of the +1 Button.

Top Healthcare Staffing News of 2010 and Predictions for 2011

At the end of 2009 we recapped the top stories in the healthcare staffing industry and made our predictions for healthcare staffing industry trends in 2010. As 2010 now comes to a close, it's interesting to see how we did on these predictions, reflect on industry events in 2010 and make some predictions on healthcare staffing trends in 2011.

The Healthcare Staffing Industry in 2010

Healthcare Staffing and the Economy 2011
The macro economic effects on the healthcare staffing industry were still the big stories this year. The SIA's 2010 Healhtcare Staffing Summit gave us all some great insight and data on this topic. While not as dire as the economic downturn in 2009, the news was still mostly a downer.

In 2010 hospitals still struggled with everything from reduced budgets to nationwide nursing strikes. All of this caused hospital job growth to slow dramatically and negatively impacted the revenue for the entire industry. While the revenue dropped for almost every company (large and small) in the healthcare staffing industry, perhaps the most notable news was learning Medical Staffing Network filed for bankruptcy in 2010.

The bad economy also claimed a few tech companies in the healthcare staffing industry in 2010. One of the largest was Healthcare VMS provider, Symbio Solutions, who filed for bankruptcy in 2010.

Negative changes in the economy produce acquisitions in every industry and the healthcare staffing industry was no exception. ABRY Partners made news with their acquisition of Comforce late in the year. However, the biggest merger news of 2010 was AMN's acquisition of Medfinders. This alliance will definitely be a game changer in 2011, particularly on the vendor management side of things.

There was also a lot of news this year regarding healthcare staffing tech company acquisitions. Concerro was one of the first, expanding their client base and service offerings by acquiring Res-Q Healthcare Systems. More significantly, however, were the acquisitions of Medefis by OnWard Healthcare and Symbio Solutions by Broadlane. Broadlane picked up the remaining assets from Symbio's bankruptcy and Onward Healthcare made a bold move by acquiring the once, vendor neutral, Medefis VMS technology.

New Technology Products for Healthcare Staffing in 2010
2010 also brought the introduction of some new software applications to the industry. Tweetdeck announced a new tool for recruiters called Job Deck, while Concerro launched their new IPhone scheduling app. Amistaff also launched a fantastic new product called Prophecy to help hospitals with employee hiring assessments. Finally, we can't leave out our or own product - ePromoter. Staffing Robot launched ePromoter in September as the first email marketing software designed and created specifically for managing healthcare staffing email marketing campaigns.

Successful Marketing Strategies for Healthcare Staffing Companies in 2010
This year, healthcare staffing companies found their most successful marketing efforts on the web. There were many changes to both search and social marketing this year that companies had to pay attention to. While Bing made itself a respected search competitor, Google decided it was time for their searches to get more social. And then Bing got really social by being the first search engined allowed to search facebook.

Although many things changed this year for social media marketing, the top stories were all about Facebook. Facebook is perhaps the best place for healthcare staffing companies to market on the web. The biggest news from Facebook was the announcement of their new 'Like' button. This simple button is changing a lot on the web in terms of how companies interact with their audience. It even started getting people asking which was more important - search engine or social network optimization.

Another marketing strategy some healthcare staffing companies took in 2010 was rebranding. Access Nurses became Aya Healthcare and Broadlane rebranded their VMS division to Prolucent. The biggest news, however, was the fact that AMN rebranded after some large acquisitions and expanding their service offerings.

Staffing Robot
Our company also went through a lot of changes this year. The most significant change being that we went from simply being a healthcare staffing blog to a full service website design and marketing company for the healthcare staffing industry. We also launched a healthcare industry news service called The Healthcare Staffing Report. Look for more changes from us in this next year as we continue to grow, expand our service offerings and launch new staffing related software products.

So, like we said, 2010 was a very eventful year for the healthcare staffing industry. So what will the next year bring?

Our Predictions for Healthcare Staffing in 2011

Further Consolidation of Staffing Agencies and Tech Companies
Although there was a lot of acquisition activity in 2010 we haven't seen the end of it. Unfortunately, many healthcare staffing agencies are still hoping for a major rebound in the economy to keep them in business. When this doesn't happen they will be looking to sell. In addition, stronger partnerships and mergers amongst small to medium players are going to be necessary to compete with the size of companies like AMN.

Tech companies in the healthcare staffing industry will be no exception. In the last decade, many tech companies have started in the healthcare staffing industry. Several of them have realized that considerable capital backing is necessary to fully realize their opportunity. Therefore, we'll see a lot of these companies forming partnerships or selling to larger, better capitalized players who can successfully deliver their offerings.  

Note to future self: Be honest about revenue and its cost of acquisition. If it's not working out - call it a day or change your game.

Success of the MSP Model
The SIA predicts that by the end of 2011 over 90% of hospitals will have adopted a VMS solution. While we don't believe it will be quite that high, hospital adoption of VMS is certain to continue increasing. In the last two years the vendor neutral, tech model has failed to prove its success when competing against the MSP model at large health systems. In addition, the MSP model has had a major resurgence of success in the last two years as hospitals have cared less about vendor neutrality and more about the successful outsourcing of their entire staffing operation.

As big companies like AMN continue to improve these offerings through technology, process and acquisitions, they will become more of a dominant service offering in the industry. If you're not AMN, figuring out your strategy on how to thrive in the presence of this new model is highly advised.

Note to future self:  Starting your own VMS offering is not the answer.

Greater Success with Web Marketing
2011 will be the year healthcare staffing companies realize the value of marketing on the web. More and more companies in the space are developing mobile web applications and launching successful social media campaigns as a way to grow their audience and increase their revenue. In 2011, understanding how to succeed on the web will become more critical than ever before. Many companies in this space are still wondering if there is any real value here and spending months analyzing (read: guessing) at the ROI they'll receive on their efforts. Beat them by doing the opposite.
 

Note to future self:  Stop guessing - start acting.

 

 Healthcare Reform
How healthcare reform effects the healthcare staffing industry will once again become a major topic as companies prepare to deal with some of the reform aspects that begin in 2012.

Note to future self:  Start preparing for this in 2008 - the good and the bad. 

Industry Innovation
At the end of 2009 we predicted that 2010 would bring about some new innovation for the healthcare staffing industry. Sadly, we were wrong here. It was mostly business as usual in this area as most tech companies just focused on how to stay in business. Hopefully this year we will see new tech innovations from some of the larger players or new comers in the market.

Note to future self:  Make your idea a reality.

 

The Market Will Rebound
Oh! A very bold prediction indeed! In 2009 we predicted the market would return in mid 2011. We're holding to that prediction. Almost every company we speak with is seeing positive signs that the market is turning around. Although no one expects this year to return to pre 2008 levels, any improvement will be welcomed. The SIA also put out some encouraging data for next year supporting this prediciton:

Note to future self:  Innovate and run a better business so I'm prepared for the market return.

 

Your Predictions
It's been another exciting year being in this industry. Time will tell what 2011 has in store for all of us. What are your predictions for healthcare staffing in 2011? If you have any, please share them here.

We wish you all happy holidays and much success in the new year. See you in 2011!

Related Posts

Top Healthcare Staffing Stories of 2009 and Predictions for 2010

Conducting Competive Analysis On Your Healthcare Staffing Competitors

One of the great things about the web is that it provides you with almost all the information needed to learn about your competition. Whether you're trying to find their customers, sales strategies, pricing or key words, almost all the data you're looking for is available online. The key is knowing where to find it. This post is part of a series discussing 10 web marketing tips your healthcare staffing agency should do right now.

Part of a successful online marketing strategy for your healthcare staffing agency is to understand and analyze your competition. Keeping track of what services they offer, how they bring people into their site and what messages they're using to promote their brand will provide a good overview of how to better position yourself against them.

Here are some helpful tips for conducting competitive research in the healthcare staffing industry.

Identify your competitors. Identify and make a list of your competitors. Include 3 companies that do exactly what you do. For example, if you are a mid-size staffing company doing per diem nursing in Orlando Florida, find 3 companies that fall into this same categorization. Then add at least 2 outliers. Using the same example, an outlier in this case might be a large national travel agency and/or a per diem allied health company in Chicago. The outliers will help give you ideas on how to expand your message and target audience. It will also help you see what's working for companies with which you are not directly competing. In addition, it's a good idea to choose both companies that are doing well and those that are not doing so well. You can learn from both.

Locate websites. For each competitor, make a list of all of their websites and the pages within each website. Take notes for each page as to the primary message, images and keywords being presented.

Page Rank. Search engines rank websites according to their popularity and relevance to the search query. So it's safe to say the page rank of each competitor's targeted keywords is important. However, because of social search results, varying search engines and other constant changes to Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) this measure is becoming less and less reliable. Therefore, it's good to pay attention to but don't focus too much on it.

Traffic. Analyzing your competitors traffic gives you an idea as to the number of visitors they get. There are some great tools for this that give you data such as regional relevancy and what search terms prospective visitors might be searching for to find them. There is a list of such tools at the end of this post.

Keywords. The next thing to know about your competition is how effective their keywords and link building efforts are. Keywords are incredibly important. Keywords tell search engines the content of your site and what words your competitors are targeting. A successful competitor has done their research and knows full well what keywords to use to drive visitors to their site. Studying this information can give you great insight into their overall online strategy. Be careful, however, that you can truly rely on the data. Unfortunately, most companies simply guess at what they think the best keywords to use are without conducting proper keyword research.

The easiest but somewhat technical way to find what keywords your competitors are targeting is to go to the page source for each page on your competitors sites. To do this, find the option for viewing the source of a web page in your browser (or have someone who knows how to do this help you find it). Once you can view the source take notes on the titles, meta descriptions and keywords being used on each page. This will give you a great understanding of the keywords each competitor is targeting.

Another great way to do this is through Google's keyword tool (see below). This tool will actually identify and suggest keywords to you based on the urls you give it. Plug your competitors website URLs in here and take note.

Sitemap. Another useful tactic is to determine whether your competitor is using a sitemap to improve the indexing of their website. If you find a sitemap, it's reasonable to assume that this competitor is at least relatively well informed on current search engine marketing tactics. To find this out with reasonable chances of success, enter the following URL into your browser’s address bar: www.competitor.com/sitemap.xml (type in the actual URL of your competitor followed by /sitemap.xml). This is the default file name for Google sitemaps so if your competitor has one this will often provide you with a resulting page full of useful xml data.

It will also show you how many pages your competition has indexed. Take note of the amount of pages each competitor has. The more indexed pages, the more likely their content is building links and rank online. Be careful here, creating a bunch of pages isn't going to improve your customer user experience. Therefore, if you're looking to easily create more pages with valuable content consider creating a blog for your healthcare staffing company. Every blog article is a new page and a new opportunity to rank for a valuable keyword.

 

Backlinks. If done correctly, backlinks serve to drive traffic from another website to yours. If the referring website is of high standing and contains content related to yours, this link is very valuable at improving your page rank. It's easy to find websites linking to those of your competition. Doing so will help you create a plan of getting these same or similar sites to link to you.

To do this, go to Google and type in the following: link:www.yourcompetitorname.com (type in the actual name of your competitors website preceded with link: ).

The results will include a sample of the backlinks that Google ‘sees’. Do this same thing in Yahoo and compare the results. The results will be different because of how the two search engines share information. For Yahoo, type in the following: linkdomain:www.competitor.com.

Remember, only focus on those sites that are reputable, display relevant content to yours and have decent page rank.

Social Media. Social networking is an important component for every healthcare staffing agencies online marketing success. Therefore, don't overlook your competition in this area. Identify all of your competitors blogs and social media pages on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Be sure to follow, subscribe to and friend all of them. If they send email newsletters sign up for those too. Conduct searches for your competitors brands on places like Facebook and Twitter to see what people are saying about them. Also, don't forget to subscribe to Google Alerts for your competitors. This will give you near real time updates on any mentions of your competition on the web.

Following these tips will give you a good idea as to the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. In addition, here are some tools that will help even more with this effort.

Traffic Estimators and Analysis:
Alexa - http://www.alexa.com/
Visible.net - http://www.visible.net
GetClicky - http://www.getclicky.com/
Compete - http://www.compete.com/

Backlinks and Page Rank:
SEOprofiler.com - http://www.seoprofiler.com
SEO for Firefox - http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/seo-for-firefox.html
LinkDiagnosis.com - http://www.linkdiagnosis.com

Keywords:
SpyFu - http://www.spyfu.com/
SEO Digger - http://www.seodigger.com/
Niche Watch - http://www.nichewatch.com/
Google Keyword Tool - http://www.googlekeywordtool.com/
Google Trends - http://www.google.com/trends

Monitoring, Feedback and General Info:
Google Alerts - http://www.google.com/alerts
Hoot Suite - http://hootsuite.com/
Tweet Deck - http://www.tweetdeck.com/
Website Grader - http://websitegrader.com/

Advanced Tools:
SEOMoz - http://www.seomoz.org/
Market Samurai - http://www.marketsamurai.com/

What's next?
Understanding and researching your competition in the healthcare staffing industry is important to implementing a successful web marketing campaign. Staffing Robot has the expertise to guide you through a complete and thorough competitive analysis on all of your competitors. Let us know if you have any questions or would like further information on successful competitive research strategies for your healthcare staffing company.

Next post - Conducting Effective Competitive Analysis on the Web
Once you're successfully promoting your brand online it's important that you're monitoring and measuring all of the activities surrounding these efforts. In the last post in this series, we'll discuss tools and tips on how to effectively monitor your healthcare staffing agencies brand online.

Related Posts

Email Marketing Tips for Your Healthcare Staffing Company

Creating Valuable Content for Your Healthcare Staffing Company

Writing and Managing Effective Pay Per Click Ads for Your Healthcare Staffing Agency

How Blogging Can Promote Your Healthcare Staffing Agency

How Healthcare Staffing Agencies Can Benefit from Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Branding and Rebranding for Your Healthcare Staffing Agency

Should You Redesign Your Healthcare Staffing Agency Website?

The Benefits of Social Networking for your Healthcare Staffing Agency

10 online marketing tips your healthcare staffing agency should do right now

Writing and Managing Effective Pay Per Click Ads for Your Healthcare Staffing Agency

"If you can't measure it you can't manage it."

The best thing about marketing on the web is that you can track your results. This means you can better manage your budget because you know what's working and what's not right away. This post is part of a series discussing 10 web marketing tips your healthcare staffing agency should do right now.

6. How to run Pay Per Click (PPC) Ads for Your Healthcare Staffing Agency. Google AdWords allows anyone to easily create an account. Unfortunately, this is more in their interest than yours. If you don't know some of the basics or how to write an effective ad you'll find yourself blowing through your budget without a positive return very quickly. If you follow these few tips, however, you can run a cost-effective campaign that produces real results.

How your staffing agency can get started with Google Ad Words

1. First things first. Go here to create a Google Ad Words account for your staffing company and enter your billing info.
2. Name Your AdWords Campaign. This may seem basic. However, take the time to give it some thought. You want to ensure the title is relevant to the campaign and something you can easily recall when you come back later and you are managing several ads. This also helps if you switch your ads to different regions or change up your message based on the time of year. For example, naming a campaign “Chicago Nurse Recruiting” lets you know that the campaign is for a nurse recruiting effort in Chicago. If you come back later you can reuse this ad in another region and start by simply changing the name to "Seattle Nurse Recruiting."
3. Specify Location. The Locations section ensures your ad appears only for Google searchers in the city you're targeting.
4. Choose AdWords Networks and Devices. These settings help you control your AdWords costs. By default, Google checks the “Display Network” checkbox. If you keep this checked your ad will show up in Google's AdSense network. You don't want this to happen. This setting will chew through your budget in no time due to a large number of impressions and clicks from mostly unrelated websites. Trust me. Uncheck this box. It's better to have your ads appear on websites related to what you’re selling. Therefore, select the "relevant pages you manage" option.
5. Consider Mobile. If you know you are getting traffic from mobile devices, Google allows you to chose ads that will be seen on mobile devices and even choose the specific mobile carriers.
6. Setting Your Budget. Google charges you according to the number of clicks your ad receives and the current rates. With PPC Ads, you can be sure that, over a month, your average daily spend doesn’t exceed what you specified. You should always decide on your maximum budget before running any ads.
7. Ad Extensions. Ad extensions offer you some additional ad options. You can choose to have your physical address displayed below your ad when someone located near your business searches for any of your campaign keywords. If you’ve already registered with Google Places (and if not you really should) your address will automatically appear in the ad. Ad Extensions also allows you to add extra links to your website within your ad and display a click to call phone number for mobile users.
8. Advanced Settings. This area allows you to specify date ranges for your campaign and even choose specific days and times of day for your ads to display. You can choose to have your ads rotate evenly or have the most-clicked ads show more often.

Writing Good Ads

 
Learning to write good pay-per-click (PPC) ads takes practice. First you need to learn and study the fundamental rules.

Google AdWords specifies character limits for each line of any ad:

•     Headline – 25 characters or less
•     Description Lines – 35 characters or less per line
•     Display URL – 35 characters or less
•     Landing Page URL – 1,024 characters or less

Remember that character count always includes spaces and punctuation marks.

1. Don't cheat. Don't try to get tricky to make your ad more attractive. Don't add unnecessary punctuation or CAPITALIZING EVERYTHING. Most likely these efforts will backfire on you and could cause your ad to be rejected.
2. Practice. At first it's very tough to work within the character limits, especially if your product or service is complex. Often times, synonyms or industry lingo acronyms for words that are too long can really help.
3. Make it interesting. You ad might be descriptive and accurate, but is it boring? If so, it won’t cause anyone to click it.
4. Create strong headlines. Use this to grab attention. Don’t simply use this for your website URL or brand name. Tell people what benefit they’ll get from your service.
5. Clear expectations. Clearly state what the visitor can expect to find after clicking on the ad. Most importantly, make sure that's what they get when they click. For example, don't advertise a referral bonus offer and then lead them to your home page that says nothing about this offer.
6. Remember your target audience. Are you marketing to nurses, doctors or allied health techs? The lingo in your ad copy should resonate with your audience.
7. Make good offers. You can attract clicks with a compelling offer – for example, “$500 Sign On Bonus.”
8. Relevancy. There should be a clear match between your ad copy and the keywords you’re bidding on. If you’re bidding on the search term “Dallas Nursing Jobs” do your best to incorporate that keyword into your ad copy.
9. Call to action (CTA). CTA terms such as “learn how,” “find out more,” and “get hired today” give readers the notion of urgency and the expectation of receiving exactly what they're looking for.
10. Test. There's no way to know which message will be most effective without testing. Run similar ads and see which one is getting the most clicks. Use the data to refine your ads.

Summary

Pay Per Click ads are one of the most effective ways to promote your business and control your budget. With a basic understanding and following these tips you can be up and running a successful web ad campaign for your healthcare staffing agency. Google is only one place to run PPC ads on the web but it's a great place to start.

What's next?

Although getting started can be relatively easy, many heatlhcare staffing agencies want better results from more advanced ad techniques. In addition, many staffing companies don't have the time to dedicate to running an effective ad campaign online. Staffing Robot can help you manage and run a results based ad campaign for your staffing agency. We'll identify your goals, target market/audience, and keywords in order to identify the right ad campaign strategy for you. If you're interested in learning more about PPC ads contact us and we'll get you started right away.

Next post - Creating Good Content for the Web

Creating good, interesting and relevant content is challenging for some healthcare staffing agencies. In the next post in this series will discuss several methods for consistently generating good content that will resonate with your audience.

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