The Q3 2025 benchmarking report for English football clubs (group2) has just been published. Learn how 12 of England's top teams perform on the digital pitch.
The latest Q3 2025 benchmarking report for English football clubs has just been published. It covers 12 English football teams including Nottingham Forest, Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club, Fulham Football Club, AFC Bournemouth, Brentford Football Club, Leicester City Football Club, Crystal Palace Football Club, Ipswich Town FC, Wolves, Southampton Football Club, Burnley Football Club, and Sunderland AFC.
The research gives an inside track on who is winning the biggest share of voice online, and quantifies the gaps, risks and missed opportunities for each team to drive traffic to their site. Though, with built-in brand loyalty, these teams aren't strictly competing with one another on a digital level, the report highlights quick wins that will improve enquiries from their online strategies and identifies the barriers that may be reducing a site’s ability to optimise digital performance and drive sales to tickets and merchandise.
To see a preview and contents page of the Q3 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.
For a glance into just six of the metrics we evaluated these 12 English football teams on, check out our quick-look table below;
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing English football clubs or request a copy of the report for the full review.
The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each site based on 50+ metrics and indicators of a successful digital strategy, including organic visibility, domain authority, paid media ads, conversion performance, technical performance, site speed, universal search, content, social ads, accessibility, and mobile performance.
Some of the leading players in the space are high spenders on paid media channels such as Google, Bing and Facebook - but have a poor or sub-optimal conversion improvement strategy. Without an optimised, sophisticated conversion strategy that maximises the conversion rate, the return on investment is unsustainable or will underperform. Scaling spend on paid media is not achievable unless the conversion rate delivers optimal performance in the sector. Some in the space have paid media spend levels from £30k+ per month but dedicate minimal resources and budgets to conversion testing. Given the cost per clicks on ad networks will continue to rise, we recommend spending at least 10% of your paid media budget on ongoing conversion optimisation testing schedules to ensure your paid media ROI maintains long-term viability, competitive advantage, and sustainability.
Savvy digital marketers know that having a technically sound website is an essential component of a successful fully integrated digital strategy - plus a site capable of maximising conversion performance. For the football teams in our report, they'll want to ensure key, profit-driving pages such as ticket sales and merchandise stores are easily accessible, and that fans aren't struggling to find what they need by being directed through old or broken links.
In the previous quarter, Nottingham Forest reported the most 404 errors (67). This quarter, Nottingham Forest has dramatically reduced their 404 errors to 6, no longer making them the one to watch. Currently, Southampton Football Club reported the most 404 errors of all football clubs (61). 404 errors also result in lost opportunities for conversions and sales. If a product or service page is broken, potential customers may turn to competitors instead. Each missed interaction directly impacts business performance.
When 62% of consumers are less likely to convert if they have a negative mobile site experience, ensuring that your site is quick and easy to load will see a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. English football clubs will want to ensure every touchpoint for their fans is high-performing and provides an excellent user experience - especially if there is frustration elsewhere!
In our previous audit, Sunderland AFC received the slowest mobile site speed (0). This quarter, Sunderland AFC has increased their mobile site speed to 17, no longer making them the football club to watch. Currently, Burnley Football Club reported the slowest mobile site speed (8). Following a plan helps websites stay competitive in search results, as Google uses mobile speed as a ranking factor. Slow sites risk losing visibility to faster competitors. A speed-focused plan secures long-term SEO benefits.
Domain authority (DA) is an essential metric for measuring the effectiveness of SEO performance, and helps create a reliable overall gauge of how effective your site is at achieving organic traffic, i.e. ‘free’ traffic that isn’t gained through sponsored ads. Football clubs are likely to have high DAs, due to them being long-standing institutions which will naturally gain significant press coverage from highly-reputable sites.
A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however it is generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. In our previous audit, Ipswich Town FC received the lowest DA score (68). This quarter, Ipswich Town FC remains the football club to watch, and they remain to score 68 for their DA. Brands with higher domain authority are often perceived as more credible and trustworthy by users. This added trust can increase click-through rates and conversions. Prioritising DA growth helps build both reputation and performance online.
A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for core, transactional keywords. When 93% of your customers won’t go past the first page of Google, your absence or lack of targeting for essential keywords will cost you conversions. For English football teams, they'll need to ensure their targeted keywords meet their business goals for their site and are optimised in line with any commercial targets that are in place.
Six football clubs reported a decline in organic traffic on desktop, with Leicester City Football Club (-45%) seeing the biggest loss. On mobile, 7 football clubs saw a drop in organic traffic, with Leicester City Football Club seeing the biggest loss (-64%). Search engines may rank a site differently on mobile versus desktop, so monitoring ensures visibility is maintained on both. Drops in traffic on one platform can indicate technical or content-related issues. Identifying problems early allows for faster fixes.
Google Universal Search Results are an evolving opportunity to make your pages visible on a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Universal results often appear before traditional listings and are eye-catching for users. Universal search results refer to rankings on a SERP that are not the traditional ‘blue line’ Google link, and a site can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. Football teams can use the 'image pack' search result to highlight their merchandise to fans looking for their store, or 'people also ask' results to quickly answer questions about their stadium or facilities.
Crystal Palace Football Club has taken the top spot for the most Universal Search appearances (3,420) — overtaking Wolves. The majority of these appearances came from ‘people also ask’ (2,200).
Longtail keywords are often considered high intent and potentially more likely to convert as a searcher is being more specific. Optimising for longtail keywords also puts your content strategy in a strong position to rank for new search terms as they enter Google’s index. Longtail keyword opportunities for English football teams can tie nicely into merchandise and ticket sales, including terms such as "Southampton FC season ticket price" or "new Bournemouth kit full range".
Crystal Palace Football Club secured the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (1,680) and the most appearances for positions 4–10 (2,813). Longtail keywords also capture voice search queries, which are becoming more common. Optimising for natural, conversational searches gives websites a competitive edge. As a result, they gain stronger positions for both text and voice searches.
With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) hitting over 44 million users in 2023, it is not surprising that companies have jumped at the opportunity to advertise on the social media platform. Facebook’s UK digital advertising revenue has been estimated to have breached 2.6b GB pounds in 2019. Football teams can use paid social advertising to drive awareness of new kits, special fixtures, or featured deals on either merchandise or tickets.
We’ve included screenshots of Nottingham Forest’s sponsored Facebook posts. This English football club considered line breaks, which can help to make their content more scannable to social media users.
When it comes to social media and on-site content strategies, it is important to release content that has a longer shelf life. An article is considered 'evergreen' if it has maintained its relevancy to an audience for a long period of time. It's great for your engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. Social media could be especially useful for sharing information about team news, post-match analysis, new kits, and upcoming fixtures.
Leicester City Football Club secured the most Facebook Likes (9.6m) and the most Instagram followers (7.9m). Facebook was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Wolves received the highest total engagement rate (734,553) and the highest average engagement (665).
Around 20% of people in the UK have a disability – 2 million of which are people living with sight loss. In addition, 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have some degree of colour vision deficiency. Football teams will want to ensure they are welcoming to all fans at any point in their customer journey, so should take care to consider accessibility when planning their digital strategy and image.
In our previous audit, Wolves received the most accessibility alerts (127). This quarter, Wolves remains the football club with the most accessibility alerts, increasing their total to 164 this quarter. Accessibility alerts can also cause problems for users who rely on keyboard navigation. If buttons, menus, or forms aren’t properly accessible, visitors with motor impairments may be unable to interact with the site. This exclusion results in lost trust and potential customers.
To get a copy of the full report, please complete the enquiry form. If you want to talk to us about accelerating your digital performance, please call us on 01543 410014 or schedule a call with Rory Tarplee.