The widespread view in the recruitment industry is that brand power does need little incentive from less traditional channels in order to continue to dictate solid performances, as gauged by higher returns on invested capital over time.
After all, the argument goes, how cool is for a firm to carry the name of Michael Page or to be one of its affiliates, for instance?
Check this out now:
The website in question is michaelpage.com. According to Google Search Results, the website “may be hacked”, which is not ideal when it comes to targeting new customers, in spite of a strong brand image.
In short, Page would do well to check out that little detail.
Preliminary SEO Audit
Our preliminary SEO audit, which does not investigate any possible cyber security issues at this stage, indicates that the technical set-up of michaelpage.com is backed by relatively high performance metrics (robots.txt, HTTP status code, and sitemap).
Mobile speed metrics could get better, though, and the path journey should be optimised. Finally, the basic site hierarchy requires intervention as well as additional on-page work.
All our findings will be disclosed in our comprehensive SEO audit on Tuesday.
Value
Elsewhere,, there is talk in banking circles that Page could soon receive an offer — or it could even decide to bulk up by acquiring assets.
Frankly, I’d dismiss both scenarios over the short term.
What’s known at present, however, is that rival recruiter Hays, which is a rather different beast, is soon expected to pay a special dividend — something that Page announced in mid-August when it pointed out that it had excess of cash on its books.
Page and Hays are strong brands, and it could be argued that their digital strategy may need less attention than marketing via more traditional channels such as expensive dinners and similar events.
Still, the shares of the latter trade at a significant premium over those of Hays based on their revenues/income profiles, so every little detail could continue to make the difference at Page.
Alessandro Pasetti and Hedging Beta are not invested in any of the companies mentioned in this article.