This is a presentation I did for the Sydney Business Technology User Group

1. Wordpress – Case Study A Recruitment Agency Website SEO + Plugins Steve Wilson steve@citirecruitment.com

2. What I do I own and run an IT Recruitment Agency www.citirecruitment.com

3. What else I do Launched an online technology company that has a number of Wordpress ‘Solutions’ for the Recruitment Industry www.echowebsites.com.au

4. This Year... We have recently extended these Wordpress solutions to work for the Car Dealership and Real Estate Industries.

5. What I had in November 2008 A static website – not attracting candidates or clients Like 80% of recruitment firms in Australia I was producing Job Adverts (unique content) NOT listed directly on my website (in an iframe) I was being contacted by suppliers offering Recruitment websites in excess of $8000 + ongoing fees of over $8000 per year – locked in. I was being quoted for custom built websites integrated with a job listings function for over $10000 PLUS the website design! I was competing with over 3000 recruitment companies in Australia AND “Mate we’re not HIRING, WERE FIRING”! 

6. What I Needed and what Wordpress offered A great looking website that was interactive and was easy to update daily A career portal for my customers – I wanted to list my jobs easily, create a news portal, have a newsletter and easy to update forms. No coding I didn’t want to spend much $$ I wanted the website to be mine.

7. What I have now – SEO Heaven! A website that consistently ranks at the top of the first page in Google for 90% of my live jobs. “CITI Recruitment” beats Citi Bank Graduate, Careers and Jobs sections worldwide We attracts over 2000 unique visitors a month. My site generates over 400 direct resumes per month for free We rank first for ‘Temp Agency’ beating Kelly Services and Staffing.com Top of Google for “Recruitment Agency Sydney” & 2nd page for “IT Recruitment Agency Sydney” Regularly the ONLY Recruitment Company with our jobs listed in the first SIX pages of Google. Consistently list 1st page for niche and common roles (Java Developer = 1093 jobs on Seek) * Fully automatic – no extra work involved for our consultants Our job listings on Google consistently beat Finite IT and Randstad (with an in-house $100k a year SEO expert and revenue of $3180 Million a year).

8. Niche Job Advert - Results

9. Common Job Adverts - Results

10. What I have now – SEO Heaven! A website that consistently ranks at the top of the first page in Google for 90% of my live jobs. “CITI Recruitment” beats Citi Bank Graduate, Careers and Jobs sections worldwide We attracts over 2000 unique visitors a month. My site generates over 400 direct resumes per month for free We rank first for ‘Temp Agency’ beating Kelly Services and Staffing.com Top of Google for “Recruitment Agency Sydney” & 2nd page for “IT Recruitment Agency Sydney” Regularly the ONLY Recruitment Company with our jobs listed in the first SIX pages of Google. Consistently list 1st page for niche and common roles (Java Developer = 1093 jobs on Seek) Fully automatic – no extra work involved for our consultants Our job listings on Google consistently beat Finite IT and Randstad (with an in-house $100k a year SEO expert and revenue of $3180 Million a year).

11. CITI Recruitment – A case study Templates – quick and easy Built my first Wordpress website in 3 weeks during the 2008 Christmas vacation with no previous Wordpress experience * Moved to our current iteration 4 months ago Template was “Activated” instantly resulting in a new website in just 2 days! Our new template has hundreds of different layouts available Social media and video integration built-in

12. First template we used – built in 3 weeks

13. CITI Recruitment – A case study Templates – quick and easy Built my first Wordpress website in 3 weeks during the 2008 Christmas vacation with no previous Wordpress experience Moved to our current iteration 4 months ago * Template was “Activated” instantly resulting in a new website in just 2 days! Our new template has hundreds of different layouts and plugins Social media and video integration built-in

14. Current Website

15. CITI Recruitment – A case study Templates – quick and easy Built my first Wordpress website in 3 weeks during the 2008 Christmas vacation with no previous Wordpress experience Moved to our current iteration 4 months ago Template was “Activated” instantly resulting in a new website in just 2 days! Our new template has hundreds of different layouts and plugins Social media and video integration built-in

16. Advantages we found using Templates in Wordpress - compared to Design Agencies Design is almost done – we only had to make minor changes We could browse hundreds of themes and get to see what the website would look like BEFORE we begin We didn’t have to brief a web designer on the look and feel or have to jump back & forth with how we would like it to look. We got to select a theme similar to our own brand Other: Templates for eCommerce, Video, Blogs, Professional Websites, Webinars, Job Boards, and Gallery websites Easy to edit and change yourself (Jodie to cover)

17. Plugins and SEO SEO Plugins – we use three types in combination + Sitemap Generators * Social Media – subscribe, refer a friend, send to twitter, facebook, etc… iPhone / Mobile Compatible Specialised Search Google Analytics – within wordpress Google Maps (see picture) Newsletter Plugin – subscribe and mail-outs Security and Backup plugins – automatically backs up our websites and tests for security issues + many more (come and ask me!)

19. Home Page Words

20. Re-write titles

21. Page Formats

22. Post Formats

23. Meta Keyword generation – automatic or manual

24. NOFOLLOW rules

25. Duplicate content

28. Share on 40 of the main Social Networks

29. Users can recommend pages or posts

30. Can push updates from your website to over 150 social media sites – including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn

31. Have a sidebar with your social media pages – works both ways

32. Install Plugins in a matter of minutes

37. Directions

38. Related Articles

39. Archives

40. iPhone

41. Subscribe

42. Search

43. Job Search (Form)

45. Specialised Plugins – the funky stuff! Autoblog – Video, News and Articles we ‘scrape’ news and video from various websites and republish on our own website. Automatically each and every day – from any news website, RSS Feed, Youtube or Blogs. Quickly build content about your specific industry – even from years back! Unique Content Fetcher Custom built article re-writer Articles are re-written so that it is unique to our website – avoiding duplicate content problems Social Media Any news or jobs are ‘pushed’ to our Twitter (made me $14,000), Facebook Status, Facebook Pages, LinkedIn and other social media websites – automatically! Custom XML / RSS Reader Job Adverts we post to Seek are read into wordpress via a standard XML file. Jobs are posted directly on the website – where the SEO plugins get to work on them We now sell this solution to other Recruitment, Car Sales and RealEstate agencies Now Partnered with Adlogic – Largest Job Posting Company in Australia

49. RSS,

50. XML,

51. Youtube

52. Blogs

55. Real Estate Agencies

56. Car Sales

58. Send to a Friend

59. SEO Metadata

61. In Summary – we I recommend Wordpress The website is yours – it’s Open Source and easily hosted on 99% of hosts It’s supported worldwide – unlike custom built CMS’s It’s always being improved - you’re not locked into a custom built CMS You can change it quickly – even from Word 2007 (or MS Live Writer) 100’s of uses and styles through templates 100’s of Plugins! Very SEO Friendly If you would like to learn more - please email steve@citirecruitment.com or call 0416 495 325