Staffing Robot - Healthcare Staffing Technology, Design & Marketing Blog

Nurse Statistics Infographic

Some very interesting statistics and information on nursing you've most likely heard, laid out in a nice infographic. This one comes from Wall Stats, created for nursingschool.org.  

Image provided by Nursing School.org

Hello Nurse: Nursing Infographic

Another great infographic on nursing. This one comes from http://master-degree-online.com/

The decision tree at the top is a nice touch.

Infographic: The Role of Nursing in the Military

Here's another great nursing infographic. This one describes the role of nursing in the military.

 

(Click to enlarge)

[Via: Carrington College's RN programs]

The work was done by: http://submitinfographics.com/

Commissioned by: http://carrington.edu/cc/programs/nursing-registered/

http://carrington.edu/ccblog/programs/registered-nursing/history-of-nursing-in-the-military-infographic/

Onward Healthcare travel nursing infographic

Great infographic by Onward Healthcare titled 'A Guide to Travel Nursing Jobs.'

Data for the Onward Healthcare travel nursing infographic included motivational factors for choosing a travel nurse career, age demographics, benefits information, and social media usage of these travel nurses. The guide also highlights salary info for travel RNs and a timeline of the travel nursing process.

 

© 2011 Onward Healthcare

Medical Solutions Announces Nurses Rock! 2nd Annual Nurses Week T-Shirt Contest

In observance of the approaching 2011 Nurse's Week, Medical Solutions, Fibers.com and Scrubadoo.com have partnered to bring you Nurse Rock! Nurses Week T-Shirt Design Contest. This is a contest where Nurses and Nurse-aficionados can create clever and compassionate t-shirt designs all for the appreciation of the Nursing profession.

Beginning April 12, users may submit endless designs using the simple yet powerful Fibers.com design tool. No design skills necessary! Fibers.com has everything you need to create your own contest entry with over 500 fonts and 10,000 images.

All entrants will receive a $10 gift card towards their next purchase at Scrubadoo.com (Limit one per person). The contest ends May 12, the birthday of the founder of modern nursing Florence Nightingale. Three winners will be chosen to win over $1000 in prizes, including an Apple iPad 2. Vote for your favorite design today!

Visit the following link to view, participate, and vote in the contest:

http://www.fibers.com/contests/nurses-week-2011

 

Staffing Robot Healthcare Staffing Website Design Services Re-design!

We've been kind of quiet over the last couple weeks but we haven't gone anywhere. In fact, quite the opposite. Recently we brought on several new clients that all have great projects. We'll show you the work we've done for them once we're finished.

We also decided to redesign our website and change up some of our service offerings. We simplified our site and made things easier to find. We also think it's a much better way to showcase our software products for healthcare staffing agencies and our sample work portfolio. Check it out: Staffing Robot Healthcare Staffing Website Design.

In addition, over the last couple of months we've had a lot of staffing companies and healthcare organizations inquire about our prices and the specifics of the services we offer. So, in an effort to make things even more straight forward we've listed all of our pricing and services directly on our site!

Other companies try to complicate or hide their pricing. However, we want to be different and make things simple by putting all of this right on our site for you to see. Now you can easily find the specifics of each service we offer and choose the ones that best fit within your budget.

Staffing Robot New Service Offerings:

Website Design for Healthcare Staffing Companies. We now offer 3 design packages to chose from. You can select from our 'Starter' 'Moving Up' or 'The Show' packages.

The Starter and Moving Up packages allow you to chose from template based themes that all come with a Content Management System for easily updating your site. The Show package provides you with a custom website design and advanced interactive options that will help you grow your business and recruit new healthcare professionals. These new services help you chose a package that best fits within your budget.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Your Healthcare Staffing Company. Staffing Robot now offers 3 Search Engine Optimization packages that will help you meet your goals within your specific budget. Our Recruiting SEO package is focused on helping your improve your recruiting strategy for healthcare professionals. The Client SEO package is focused on ensuring new clients find you when they need your services. Finally, our Total SEO package is a complete SEO package for your entire website that focuses on both recruting and obtaining new clients.

Healthcare Staffing Social Media Marketing. Whether you're just starting out with social media or ready to launch a successful campaign, we now have 3 packages designed to help your healthcare staffing agency with social media marketing. The Starter package gets you set up on the social media platforms of your choice. The Social Media Management package gets you going with advanced ROI and brand management tracking. The Social Media Campaign package delivers a complete Social Media Marketing campaign to you that will positively impact your social media recruiting and client acquisition strategies.

Branding and Logo Design. Staffing Robot will help you create and promote a winning brand. Our branding packages give you everything from basic logo design with our Starter package, to delivering business card and letterhead layouts with our Premium package, all the way a complete brand identity for your staffing company with our Deluxe branding package.

Staffing Robot Software Product Offerings:

Email Marketing Software for Healthcare Staffing Companies. We launched ePromoter a few months ago and have been really please with the adoption so far. Several staffing agencies have told us they really love the application and the ability it gives them to create and track the success of their email marketing campaigns. Sign up today and start sending e-newsletters to your healthcare professionals and clients.

Hively. We'll reveal more about this product soon! In the meantime, look out for invitations to be a beta tester!

As always, Staffing Robot can also help you with custom software and mobile web development. If you need a company to help bring your new idea to life or to ensure your website provides the same experience to your customers on mobile platforms like iPads and smart phones - we can help.

So take a look at our new site and let us know what you think. If you have any questions or would like a free estimate on your web project let us know and we'll get started right away!

Nursing Shortage Info Graphic

Another great info graphic.

Recently I posted on the info graphic on salary data related to Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA's). In that post I stated that I've seen very few info graphics detailing data related to healthcare staffing. Glad to see that I was wrong on this, as I think info graphics are an excellent way to quickly and easily communicate helpful information.

Even though the economy has seemingly slowed the nursing shortage, most data suggests it hasn't fully gone away and in fact will only get worse over the next several years. This nursing shortage info graphic from Veterinary Technician is very interesting.

Via: VeterinaryTechnician.com

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

"The purpose of SEO is simple - to increase conversions." What is a conversion? A conversion is some form of measurable event. It can be different for every company - a phone call from a customer, filling out your website contact form, or a product being purchased from your website. This is the single most important purpose of SEO - to create these conversions. This post is part of a series discussing 10 web marketing tips your healthcare staffing agency should do right now.

4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Your Healthcare Staffing Agency. Many people still have a hard time understanding the value of SEO or what SEO really is. Yes, many components of it can be technical, but understanding the basic concepts will help you make the best decisions you can when it comes to SEO for your medical staffing company.

What is Search Engine Optimizaiton (SEO)? Search Engine Optimizaiton (SEO) is a process whereby a set of skills and techniques are applied to a website in order for the site to be properly indexed, ranked and displayed by search engines. Or, put more simply, it's making sure your customers find you when they search for relevant words on Google, Bing and other search engines.

Why should you SEO your staffing agency's website?

1. SEO is timely. Your web advertising (banner ads, PPC, Facebook ads) might not be reaching your customers when they are looking to buy or even paying attention. SEO ensures your customers find you when they need to and when they are searching for you.
2. SEO is cost effective. SEO campaigns cost a fraction of offline marketing. For example, a typical print ad in a national magazine can cost you $20,000 - $40,000, minimum. This is the cost for only one ad and how do you even know it's reaching the right people? A good SEO manager or company can run a successful campaign that produces real results for 5 - 10% of this cost.
3. SEO helps all of your marketing efforts. From content creation, to site performance improvements, to link building campaigns – all of these efforts serve to promote your brand, strengthen your marketing and increase conversions. Further, it's critical that you realize SEO is a process, not an event. The more content you create, links you earn, and improvements you make to your site performance, the more return you will see on your investment.
4. Gain valuable insights. If you pay attention to your site analytics (which goes hand in hand with SEO) you'll gain valuable insights into the minds of your customers. It will teach you more about the services they're looking for and the words, questions, and phrases they're using to find them.
5. SEO evens the playing field. Even if you're a new per diem nursing company only servicing one city, a successful SEO campaign can get you listed right along side some of your largest competitors. Successful SEO requires a degree of agility that big companies often can’t manage.

Here are some do's and don'ts to help you get stared with SEO.

The Do's

1. The most effective SEO strategy is to create a great website for your healthcare staffing agency. Great websites are interactive, relevant and provide useful content to their customers. Great websites will always rank highly because search engines are designed to do just that. Even Google suggests you design for your customers, not for SEO.
2. Research. Lots of companies tell us the keywords they want to rank for when we start an SEO project. However, often times, data from our research suggests these are not the best keywords for them to use. It's very likely that what you think people are searching for to find your business is not supported by good research data. Do your homework first.
3. Choose the right URL. Key words within a URL may be the single most relevant way to show up when your customers search for you. Keep them simple and to the point, and no - they do not have to use your company name. Say someone is searching for “Seattle Nurse Staffing Agency.” All things being equal, the site www.seattlenursestaffing.com is going to have a higher ranking than www.carenursesplus.com. Google highly prioritizes keywords contained in the URL.
4. Use page titles. Your page title is arguably the most valuable place for keywords on every page. This title helps the search engines easily identify your page.
5. Create meta descriptions. A meta description is essentially a description or summary of the page contents. It has a significant impact on your search engine ranking. This is what shows up as your description in the search results. Use keywords and make it relevant.
   
   
6. Earn links from relevant sites. Search engines give high ranking preference to sites that have inbound links from other sites. The more links, the more important your site appears to search engines. But not all links are the same. Sites linking to yours should have a good reputation and contain content that is relevant to your content. If the search engines deem these sites otherwise it can hurt your ranking.
7. Name Your Images. Give all of your images a relevant, keyworded title and use both alt and title attributes as well. Think of it this way - search engines can’t actually see images, but they can read the alt and title tags. This includes your logo. Calling your logo something more keyword specific than "logo" will go a long way.
8. Link your keywords. Does your site have the words 'Click Here' hyperlinked to take you to another page? If so, you're basically telling Google you'd like to rank for the words 'Click Here.' Oops. By hyperlinking words you're telling Google these words are important and relevant to your content. Make sure that's true. Instead of 'Click here to read an article on improving your staffing agency's website' try 'Click here to read an article on improving your staffing agency's website'.
9. Create relevant and useful, keyword driven content. Keep the buzzwords to a minimum and make sure your content is useful, relevant and clearly states what you do. Most importantly, don't forget to use your keywords and make sure they match your content throughout the page.
10. Remember that SEO is a process, not an event. I've talked to so many people that say "we've already done SEO." That's the first way I can tell they aren't effectively deploying SEO tactics. SEO is something that needs constant management, monitoring and improvement. Even if you see good initial results, these results can slip without warning if you let up on your efforts. Most importantly, just remember that your competitors are doing the same thing you are. Steady wins the race here.

The Don'ts

1. Break the rules. Unfortunately with SEO there are a lot of rules and the rules change all the time. If you don't follow the rules the consequences can be worse than if you didn't do any SEO at all.
2. Keyword stuff. You can use too many keywords or overuse key phrases. Doing so will negatively affect your site's ranking.
3. Duplicate content. Blatantly copying content from another site is a bad idea for several reasons. One of them is because it will hurt your search engine rankings. This should be fairly obvious. Perhaps less obvious though is how you're duplicating content within your own pages. This includes your title tags, meta descriptions, etc. I just ran across a site last week where every page (all 30) has the exact same title. This has a very negative effect on your SEO.
4. Using images instead of text. Recently we were doing SEO for a staffing company that had just completed their website design. Unfortunately the web designer used images for all the headings instead of text. Heading tags (h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6) play an important role in SEO. They should include relevant keywords for the page. Using images instead of text looses you points in this area. Speaking of headings, remember that the lower the heading number, the more relevant it is to search engines (an h1 carries more weight than an h3 tag).
5. Take down linking sites. If you have multiple brands or products, having multiple sites actually helps you. As long as you are not duplicating content, you are effectively adding more content to the web and creating another location from which you can link back and forth. I recently talked to a company that wanted to take down their other product sites because they felt they were "competing" with their main site. Not so. Keep these sites going if you want to keep your SEO.
6. Use 'black hat' tactics. In the past, people have attempted to trick the search engines. Just don't do it. These tactics are called 'black hat' SEO tactics. The penalties for getting caught are not worth it and you will get caught. For example, in some cases, people have attempted to create invisible text by making the font color the same as the background color of the page. They then put the text at the very bottom of the page, so that the visitor won't see it but the search engines will. This doesn't work and the search engines will catch and de-list you.
7. Forget about local. If your company's business is mostly done in your local area, such as a per diem allied nursing agency, local SEO tactics are a must. Even if you are a national company, many local SEO tactics can help you. Local SEO is it's own ball of wax so we'll cover that more in detail in a later post.
8. Don't post too many links on a single page. Google suggests you use less than 100. Even this number is high for most companies. For example, unless you are listing jobs or something similar, I can't think of any reason a healthcare staffing agency would want to have so many links on a page. Keep the number low and the links relevant.
9. Use too much Flash. I'm not in the anti-Flash camp but I do think you need to be cautious if you're using Flash on your website. Currently, Flash is not supported on mobile devices like iPhones and iPads. In addition, many hospitals don't have Flash (or at least not the latest version) installed. Therefore, using Flash can make your content inaccessible to many of the people you're trying to reach. Further, it is very tricky (if not sometimes impossible) to SEO a Flash site. Play it safe. Almost anything you'd want to do in Flash as a healthcare staffing agency can be done with JQuery and JQuery does not have these same issues.
10. Use competitors names in your SEO. Some companies think they're tricky by using names of their competitors in their SEO campaigns. Don't do it. No one thinks you're clever and in fact, many people will just think you're shady. It's a bad practice and will potentially do more harm than good.

Summary

The two most important things to remember are that 1) a good website design is the best SEO strategy you can pursue and 2) SEO is a process and not an event. If you haven't started your SEO project it's better to do so sooner rather than later. Further, if you're getting ready to build a new website it's always best to do your SEO first. This helps with the content, layout and navigation decisions. If you design first, you can find yourself having to do a whole bunch of rework. 

What's next?

Although everything in this post can get you off to a good start with your SEO efforts, it's really just the beginning. There are several things to consider in order to produce real results you can measure. Hiring an SEO company with specific knowledge of the healthcare staffing industry is an excellent way to ensure the results you're looking for.

If you'd like more information on running a successful SEO campaign contact Staffing Robot and we'll discuss your goals, and figure out how to best get you started achieving them.

Next post - The benefits of blogging to your healthcare staffing company

Of all the marketing efforts your staffing agency takes on, blogging is the most simple, cost effective way to promote your brand and create content. In the next post we'll discuss the benefits of blogging for your healthcare staffing agency and help you get started.

Related Posts

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

Branding and Rebranding for Your Healthcare Staffing Agency

"Steady brand investment is rewarded by lasting competitiveness." This quote from the UK Design Council sums it up perfectly. If you treat your brand as an asset and constantly invest in its creation, promotion, evolution and management it will pay off in terms of your success. This post is part of a series discussing 10 web marketing tips your healthcare staffing agency should do right now.

3. Branding and Rebranding for Your Healthcare Staffing Agency. As a healthcare staffing agency, your brand is the represenation of all your company stands for. Developing and promoting your company brand is not simply the job of the marketing team, it must be an integrated component of all your business practices. 

What does your brand say about your company? Have you invested enough in your brand to ensure it’s relevant today? If not, it may be time to start or to rebrand altogether.

What is a brand?  A brand is more than a logo or a trademark. It's more than a slogan, sales pitch or mission statement. A brand is an identification or a representation. It can even be as intangible as a feeling, understanding or an association.

Identify your brand. To identify your brand, the best thing to do is to first analyze and understand your business. Make sure that whatever you're delivering is of the best quality it can be. Nothing destroys your brand faster than having a reputation of not delivering on the promise of your products or services.  

Ask yourself these questions:

• What is it you deliver and how do you deliver it? 
• What is the core audeince for your product or service? Be as specific as possible here. For example, “healthcare systems” is not a target audience.  “Primary care hospitals, with 500 - 1,500 beds, that spend more than $5,000,000/year on allied healthcare staff, in urban areas, of the southwest” is getting closer.
• What is the value and overall benefits of your product or service to this audience?
• What message are you trying to send and what message will resonate most with this audience?
• What is the “voice” with which you want to communicate this message. Is it professional? Fun?  Experienced? Laid back?
• What is the one thing you want people to think of when they interact with your brand?  Quality?  Professionalism?  Great customer service?
• What makes your company stand out from your competition? 
• What are your company values and what benefits do you bring to the market?

Creating your brand.

Every brand is unique. The point of branding is to identify your company's uniqueness and promote it in an effort to distinguish you from your competition. Every good brand contains the elements numbered below. Refer to this list as you develop a brand from the ground up, or measure your existing brand against them.

1. Focus
Your brand must first be appropriate to your market, audience and product and should actually communicate who your audience is. For example, Apple is a great brand, but if you’re marketing to hospitals and healthcare professionals, you wouldn't want to necessarily emulate Apple. You need something more specific to your audience.

2. Clarity
What is the message? From the logo to the slogan, to the collateral, are you instantly conveying the right message to the right audience? It’s easy enough to test. Show different variations of your marketing assets (ads, brochures, business cards, logo) to people you don’t know. Can they easily identify your target audience? Can they clearly describe the message you’re trying to promote?

3. Promise
A brand’s promise can be intangible but can also be the most powerful component of the brand. Your brand's promise must be meaningful to its audience. Brand promises are almost always unspoken, although they can be part of the slogan or actual logo. They can also be more about the actual delivery or performance of your product or service.

If your company image and reputation is primarily based on highly skilled and qualified nurses, you must consistently deliver on that promise. If your clients experience with your brand doesn't match their expectation, the value of your brand will be negatively effected. The trust and loyalty of your customers will decline and quickly turn into an issue that is difficult, if not impossible to fix.

The key is to get the promise of your brand firmly planted in the back of your customers mind. When a brand consistently delivers on its promise and provides a good customer experience, the return it brings in references, recommendations and testimonials can be invaluable.

4. Consistentcy
Again, branding is more than a marketing function. Promoting a good brand is an integrated business practice who’s responsibility lies with the entire company. Therefore, once you have created your message it’s critical that this message doesn’t change and is clearly and consistently communicated in all of your efforts.

We’ve worked with several companies that, in the past, had multiple groups working separately on their branding and messaging. Their print designers weren’t talking with their web group and the PR department wasn’t talking to anyone. These efforts resulted in several mistakes, wasted money and an overall poor brand experience for their customers that was hurting their company. Consistency is key.

5. Easy to Identify
Once you have your message in place and your entire company onboard with consistently communicating that message, it’s time to figure out how to get your message out to the public. There are a lot of distractions in every industry today and getting people to hear your message can be a difficult challenge.

That's why, in addition to consistency, patience is also key here. Not necessarily patience in terms of seeing positive returns, but being patient enough to let the message filter out into and resonate with the public without modifying or changing it.

A great way to ensure this is to develop a communication strategy and stick with it. Create your message and then promote that message consistently with press releases, social media channels, web and print ads, and email marketing campaigns. Give these channels enough time to work. A good campaign should be promoted for at least a full business quarter.

6. Calls to Action

How can your customers and healthcare staff relate to your message? Why should they care and what is it they should do? A great message is only half of the challenge. The end goal of building and promoting a good brand is to create action with your customers. Many companies forgot this critical step. Basically, don’t forget to ask for the sale. A call to action should be inherent in your brand’s message: "We have the best nurses at the best rates so work with us.” Or, "You can trust us because we've been in the staffing industry for 30 years (so work with us often and more than any of our competitors)."

Summary

If you're just now building a brand for your company or a new product or service offering, hopefully you will find this information helpful. In addition, if you've failed to succesfully invest in your brand over the years you might want to consider rebranding. Many people we talk to think rebranding is risky. It certainly is if you don't do it right but no more risky than not steadily investing in your existing brand. In addition, if the largest healthcare staffing agency in the nation (AMN) can rebrad - so can you. Right now is actually an excellent time to rebrand your staffing agency and present your company in a new way.

What's next?

All of this might seem like a big effort and perhaps a bit difficult to get under control. However, developing a successful brand for your healthcare staffing agency can be accomplished quickly and easily with the right team.

If you determine that you need a new brand developed or to take on a rebranding effort, start with the information provided in this post. Once you have answers to your questions and your goals in mind decide if this project is best run internally or sent to a professional branding company that will let you keep focused on your day to day business efforts. If the latter, Staffing Robot can help. Contact us if you have questions or would like a free estimate for your healthcare staffing agency's branding effort.

Next post - Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Tips for Your Healthcare Staffing Company

With all the changes search engines continue to make, it's critical you stay up to date in order to keep ranking high for your targeted key words. In the next post of this series we'll discuss the advantages of implementing an effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaign. The more effort you put into your SEO campaigns the more you'll move past your competition in this area.

Related Posts

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

CNA Salary Infographic

I'm a big fan of info graphics. I've have seen very few detailing data related to healthcare staffing but this one is a good one. The info graphic below (found on scrubsmag.com) details salary data related to Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA's).

CNA's provide basic care to elderly, hospitalized or other patients in need and is a great entry level job into the field of healthcare. The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that demand for CNAs will grow by 21 – 35 % in the next decade, as the population ages and life expectancy increases.


[Via: CNA Certification at Best CNA Training Schools]
Add This Image to Your Website/Blog 

via scrubsmag.com