The Q4 2023 benchmarking report for UK airport parking has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK airport parking companies perform across the digital space.

The latest Q4 2023 benchmarking report for UK airport parking has just been published. It covers the largest 12 national airport parking providers, including Airport Parking & Hotels, Purple Parking, Sky Park, BCP, NCP, Parking4Less, Airparks, Holiday Extras, Park Hero, Jet Parks, Fly Park, and Maple Parking.
 

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 other airport parking brands to win brand exposure, drive online views, and generate bookings. The report highlights quick wins that will improve enquiries from your online strategy and identifies the barriers that may be reducing your site’s ability to optimise digital performance.

To see a preview and contents page of the Q4 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

Q4 2023 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 airport parking providers on, check out our quick-look table below;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK airport parking brands or request a copy of the report for the full review.

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What The Industry Research Report Covers

The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each retailer based on 50+ metrics and indicators of 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.  

Driving Optimal ROAS from Paid Media Channels

Some of the leading players in the space are high spenders on paid media channels such as Google, Bing & 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.

Technical Website Compliance

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 airport parking brands, having an easy-to-navigate site is essential for drivers needing to enquire about parking options and particular care should be taken of the pathways to key pages, such as locations and prices.

In our last report, Purple Parking had 300 4xx errors. This quarter, the number of errors has increased to 323. We’re pleased to find Holiday Extras has 0 4xx errors — an improvement from 27 last quarter.

Site Speed & Conversion Rate 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 makes a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. Airport parking providers especially need to ensure their mobile site is perfect, as customers may need to access their information from the airport on their mobile devices.

Last quarter, Maple Park scored 31, positioning itself to 3/12. This quarter, Maple Park had a score of 36, moving up to 4/12. Flypark still has the lowest mobile speed score of 27. Purple Parking is second to last with a mobile speed score of 32. This airport parking provider also has the highest number of 3xx errors (1,037). So they could make adjustments to these internal redirects to aid with page speed.

Building Competitive Advantage with Domain Authority

Domain authority 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. Airport parking companies should be continually pushing to improve their DA by sharing great-quality content about their locations and parking options.

A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however, it’s generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. . DAs for this quarter range between 19 and 76, showing a slight drop in ratings compared to the previous quarter (between 20 and 76). Holiday Extras has the highest DA rating and also has the highest number of total backlinks (3,897,210). So the other airport parking providers could seek opportunities to increase their backlinks.

Organic Performance – Mobile & Desktop

A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for key, 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. With the increase in electric vehicles over the past few years, now would be a great time to push the ‘out with the old, in with the new’ narrative, and advertise any EV-specific parking spots they may have available.

This quarter, 8 airport parking providers saw a decrease in organic mobile traffic. However, Holiday Extras has secured a 30% increase in organic mobile traffic, putting itself at the top of the leaderboard.

Universal Search Opportunity

Google Universal Search Results is 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 retailer can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. Airport parking providers should be utilising all universal search features as potential customers will be interested to see how previous customers have found their experience via 'reviews', 'FAQs', and 'people also ask'.

In the last report, Holiday Extras had the most appearances for Universal Search, and Holiday Extras continued to out beat the other airport parking providers this quarter. Flypark has the lowest appearances for Universal Search. It could make improvements by adding a FAQ section and obtaining reviews from customers.

The Longtail Keyword Opportunity

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 retailer new search terms as they enter Google’s index. There are many longtail keyword options airport parking companies could be using such as ‘parking near Heathrow’ and ‘best airport parking options’.

In this quarter, Flypark saw a total of 8,193 appearances for longtail keywords, though only 16 of these appeared in the top 3 positions on search engine pages. Holiday Extras saw a total of 148,804 appearances for longtail keywords. However, 24,312 longtail keywords appeared in the top 4–10 positions on search engine pages, with only 8,364 appearing in the top 3. This indicates a poor-quality approach to gaining top performing longtail keywords.

Facebook Adverts

With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) forecast to hit over 42 million users by 2022, 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. For UK airport parking, Facebook ads are an opportunity to ensure customers see parking availability, prices, and location options. Holiday Extras likes to appear as a resource for consumers by focusing on international days and providing facts about tourist attractions. Its top-performing Facebook article is a guide to places to travel, so its Facebook ads feel in line with this.

Top Social Shares & Content

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 longer. It's great for your retailer 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 their different locations and any offers they are running.

Holiday Extras saw the largest total of engagement on social media (43,032). This makes sense, as Holiday Extras has the largest following on Facebook and Instagram (with a slight increase on both platforms since the last quarter).

Website Readability & Accessibility

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. When websites are not designed to meet these needs, retailers lose customer interest and they turn elsewhere. All airport parking brands need to ensure their website is accessible for all potential customers.

Last quarter, we noted that Purple Parking made no improvements to accessibility. This quarter, Purple Parking has slightly reduced the number of alerts (from 335 to 331), though this figure is still alarming. This airport parking company had 101 images with missing Alt txt for this quarter, so it could make improvements to this error to improve its accessibility. Purple Parking also has the highest number of complex words used (373), so it could rework its written content to make the language more accessibile for a wider range of consumers.

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q4 2023 REPORT

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 Mike Movassaghi.