AU & NZ
SG
MY
US
IE
IDEX Consulting driving candidate conversions and SEO success with Access Volcanic
IDEX Consulting, a specialist recruitment consultancy serving the Financial Services, Insurance, and Legal sectors across the UK and internationally, transformed their outdated recruitment website using Access Volcanic, maintaining stable traffic through SEO optimisation despite losing 30% from Indeed and LinkedIn changes.
With no in-house developer, they leveraged Volcanic's Design Studio and expert support to build an owned candidate channel, turning job alerts into a top-10 traffic source and recovering 20-30% of lost traffic through organic growth.
Challenge
- Outdated website
- No in-house developer or SEO specialist
- Over-reliance on third-party job boards
- Desire to own and grow an “owned” candidate & client channel
- UX and brand consistency gaps
Approach
- Full visual refresh and iterative rebuilds on Access Volcanic’s website platform
- Adoption of Design Studio for agile page creation
- SEO optimisation with platform tools and external insight
- Turn job alerts into an automated nurture channel
- Reduce friction in the application process
- Plug-and-play tracking and marketing tools
- High-touch account management and ongoing website functionality roadmap
Results
- Increased traffic by c.20–30% through SEO and website optimisation
- Job alerts now rank among IDEX’s top 10 sources for traffic and revenue increasing conversion by engaging warm candidates already in the CRM
- Rapid full visual reskin of the site within 2 weeks
- Anticipated cost savings from built-in cookie management of c£1k per annum
- Efficient marketing operations for a small team
Inherited website, new pressures
Jack Davis, Head of Digital, and Rebecca Howarth, Senior Digital Marketing Executive, lead the digital strategy at IDEX ensuring the business remains competitive and visible in a fast-changing recruitment landscape.
When Jack and Becky joined the team, they inherited an Access Volcanic website that hadn’t been updated in some time. Jack recalls:
Within the first two weeks of being here, I was tasked with reskinning the whole thing. It hadn’t been touched in quite a while, so we knew it needed work.
The team faced several challenges:
- No in-house developer to support updates or bespoke changes
- Requirement to build an owned channel for candidate and client generation, independent of external providers
- Heavy reliance on traffic from Indeed and LinkedIn
- Desire to improve SEO and candidate conversion
- Inconsistent UX and brand alignment across digital touchpoints
Embarking on the project, Becky found the platform immediately accessible:
This was the first website platform I’d used, and it was so easy to use.
Implementation journey: From emergency fixes to a strategic rebuild
Access Volcanic’s ease of use and expert support helped IDEX quickly refresh their site and prepare for a full redesign aligned with a wider brand refresh.
Jack explains:
We leaned on the Volcanic designers and our Customer Success Manager to help with little changes. The support was good - we didn’t have a developer in-house, so that was crucial.
The new Design Studio functionality within the platform gave the team more control over campaign-specific pages and content updates once the foundations were in place:
Design Studio allows us to go in and change things. If I want to duplicate a page and amend it, I can. We’ve got more flexibility now.
Volcanic also helped IDEX reduce reliance on external job boards by effectively building their own candidate acquisition channel:
We wanted to drive more traffic and applications from the website, so we weren’t relying on job boards as much. It was about owning our own channel.
Stable traffic, stronger organic growth & operational efficiency
IDEX has seen measurable improvements in traffic, candidate engagement, and SEO performance since optimising their Volcanic website.
1. Traffic stability despite losing major sources
When Indeed and LinkedIn changes removed free traffic streams, IDEX experienced an immediate 30% drop from these sources.
Yet:
Even though we lost those two key free channels, traffic basically stayed the same. That’s a win.
Through SEO improvements and website optimisation, IDEX recovered roughly 20–30% of lost traffic keeping total traffic stable.
The sudden loss of third-party traffic validated IDEX’s strategy:
- Don’t rely on external partners for candidate attraction, as their model can change
- Build SEO foundations early
- Nurture your existing talent pool
2. Growth in Organic Channels
IDEX saw clear evidence of their SEO impact. Jack said:
We’ve seen pretty good growth from Google Jobs, which is a key marker of better SEO performance.
Domain score and organic visibility improved across both website iterations.
Becky adds:
The technical SEO pieces in the background mean we don’t have to think about that as much - it's structured in the right way and pretty good out-of-the-box. And the account management side - that’s the extra bonus no tool could deliver.
3. Job Alerts Now a Top Performer
Jack confirmed that job alerts are now among their top 10 traffic sources for the site.
Job alerts were like turning a tap on for applications. That's probably one of the easiest and best features to nurture the talent pool that we've got.
4. Increased efficiency for a lean team
Volcanic enabled their small team to execute at a high level. As Jack and Becky mentioned:
As a small team, we need that extra bit of support and handholding… that experience is invaluable. We had an SEO session with the team and learned key website optimisation tips. I didn’t realise headings had to be in a certain order - we’ve implemented those changes
Partnership and lessons learned
IDEX praised Access Volcanic’s support:
You’ve set the bar really high. Every meeting is engaging and productive, consolidating our ideas into actionable solutions.
The team also praised Access Volcanic’s roadmap and innovation:
Jack said “we're seeing a lot of innovation” with Becky adding, “It’s good to see a company investing in the right things.”
Earlier this year, Volcanic took us through their product roadmap, and it was one of the most engaging and well-delivered sessions I’ve attended. Everything discussed seemed to align perfectly with what we are looking for.
Would IDEX recommend Access Volcanic?
Definitely. The platform’s really good – very user-friendly, flexible, and constantly improving. We’ve used it through two iterations now and would absolutely recommend it.
Explore Access Volcanic
Discover how Access Volcanic can help your agency build a resilient, high-performing recruitment website even in a market where job board visibility is unpredictable.