Having managed Blogging4Jobs.com since 2007, I know a little something about web metrics and what it takes to build and execute a successful online SEO and optimization campaign online. Your company career site and online job postings are internet properties that provide valuable information and insights that are key to your recruitment marketing and employer branding strategy. Evaluating the metrics and measurements used to determine the success of not just a company career page or employment site become less a process and more of a feeling with the way of how things should be. Maybe it’s like that at your office when it comes to things like employment law or workplace SOP. I was reminded of this last month when I had a question during a recent presentation titled, “How to Make Your Career Site the Heart of Your Employment Brand.” Like any online destination, your company career page should be monitored and measured to evaluate success, understand keywords and/or search terms that have led to the site and where potential opportunities lie and that starts with determining a software that specializes in this kind of monitoring.

Analytics to Measure Your Company Career Page

Recruiting teams large and small can easily take advantage of Google Analytics to help you and your recruiting team understand the traffic drivers and visitors of your career page. It’s free and easy to install with the help of your IT team. Admins, generally IT can identify and allow for reporting and metrics access with simply a Google ID (AKA a Gmail account). I recommend having your IT team set you for instant access to these metrics direct from your PC instead of relying on them to provide you the data because there is in fact career page and recruiting emergencies. Trust me.

Since a reported 90% of job seekers who visit your career page, leave without applying for a job opening, it’s imperative for recruiting teams to have an understanding of where your web visitors are entering, exiting and the amount time they spend learning about your company. Knowing this provides you concrete numbers and information to plan, research and execute an effective online recruiting strategy that focuses on the one online property the company controls fully, your company careers and employment page. It’s also important to see what online channels including social networking are driving traffic to your job openings.

Metrics though are a great starting point so that you can understand the current traffic drivers before you plan your online recruitment and employment branding strategy. Using Google Analytics, I am quickly and easily available to access reports and specifically information regarding the three most important online metrics when evaluating your recruiting online.

• Bounce Rate. The smaller the percentage the better. A higher percentage number indicates that web visitors visit and within fifteen seconds leave the web page. For bloggers and websites outside of the HR and recruiting space, a solid bounce rate is 60 percent and below. Strategies to lower your bounce rate include optimizing your web pages and content for SEO that is specific and targeted focusing more on quality visitors than quantity. Let’s face it as employers, we have enough applications just not enough qualified candidates applying for our job openings.

• Page Views. This metric tells you the average number of pages a visitor viewed before leaving the website. The more page views, the more engaged a website visitor is. Career pages should have multiple pages, multi-media content that is varied including blogs, videos and photos that share important information about employment topics like company culture, advancement opportunities, employment benefits and what’s it like to work at your company.

• Time on Site. Similar to page views, the more time a candidate spends on our company careers website, the better. They are interested, engaging and hopefully qualified to do the job we have an opening. Videos often increase time on site as well as suggested pages for further viewing and career page navigation and hyperlinks give job seekers more opportunities to continue learning, engaging and clicking.

• Online Referrals. It’s always important to look at the big picture with regard to information above but it’s equally important to look at the smaller picture. This means evaluating your online referrers, the websites and online sources that are providing you the most traffic, time on site and page views. Armed with this information you can choose to expand your efforts when it comes to certain sites and social networks that provide great job candidate leads.

Essentials to Employer Branding Online

Armed with metrics, data and a plan, recruiting teams can begin experimenting to improve their likelihood that they will reach the most qualified candidate group surfing online. Using experimentation, you can increase your targeted traffic by:

• Using Job Distribution and Aggregator Tools. Social job sharing tools and aggregators like Simply Hired can help drive traffic to your job openings. Google Analytics provides traffic numbers on website referrals anywhere on the web. From here I like to break down sources of hire and turnover by 30 days, 90 days, 6 months, 12 months, 18 months and 24 months to determine which referrers lend the best quality hires for my company.

• Engaging on Social Media. Employers getting social provide valuable resources to passive and active job seekers, increasing visibility and employer brand. Just like traditional marketing, it is a challenge to determine what websites or social networks candidates visited especially on multiple occasions before they are compelled to apply for your job opening.

• Using SEO or Search Engine Optimization. In Silicon Valley, it’s common for employers to use Google Adwords which are paid keyword opportunities to reach job seekers who are searching for specific keywords. By including common keywords that qualified job seekers are searching for in your online job postings and career page, you can drive targeted paid and unpaid traffic to your webpage. Direct Employers which owns .Jobs allows employers to increase their SEO using thousands of microsites that elevate your job postings and listings.

Like any online marketing and visibility strategy, the game and effective strategies vary depending on search terms, industry, geographic location and the algorithm of search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing as well as social networking. Most importantly, recruiters should arm themselves with data and best practices to begin targeting recruiting efforts focused on your employer’s most important piece of online real estate for recruiting, your company career site.