The Q1 2024 benchmarking report for UK EV charging companies has just been published. Learn how the top 11 UK EV charging companies perform across the digital space.

The latest Q1 2024 benchmarking report for UK EV charging companies has just been published. It covers the largest 11 national EV charging companies, including Pod Point, InstaVolt, Osprey Charging, Egg, bp pulse, IONITY, GRIDSERVE, Wallbox Chargers, evchargepod.co.uk, ChargedEV, and Plug Me In.  

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 EV charging companies to win brand exposure locally, secure online views, and ultimately drive the installation and usage of their charging points. 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 Q1 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

Q1 2024 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 11 EV charging companies on, check out our quick-look table below;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing EV charging companies, 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 EV charging companies, having an easy-to-navigate site is essential for EV drivers needing to locate charging options for their vehicles and particular care should be taken of the pathways to key pages, such as charging station locators.

In the previous quarter, Wallbox Chargers was the least technically compliant website, with 101 4xx errors. In Q1 2024, this EV charging company has increased its total 4xx errors to 442, and it must update any links so that customers aren’t lead to a dead page.

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. As with ensuring your site is technically compliant, EV charging companies must ensure their site experience is fast and efficient (just as their chargers should be!).

The site speed score for this quarter ranges between 49 and 26, with Wallbox Chargers and GRIDSERVE at joint bottom place. Both EV charging companies should remove large images from their websites to help increase their site 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. As the market for products relating to electric vehicles widens, brands such as those in the EV charging sector must ensure they're building authority early, to land them in good stead as the industry develops. 

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. The DA rating for this quarter was between 74 and 10, with evchargepod.co.uk reporting the lowest score. This company should test its website for mobile-friendliness and include high-quality backlinks to help increase its DA score for the next quarter.

Organic Performance – Mobile & Desktop

A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for key, transactional keywords. In the case of EV charging companies, these could look like "EV charge point near me", "home EV charge point installation", or "office EV charge point installation". 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.

Six of the 11 companies encountered a loss in organic mobile traffic YoY, with Egg seeing a 71% loss in traffic. At the other end of the scale, Osprey Charging reported the biggest increase in organic mobile traffic (64%).

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. For emerging sectors such as EV charging, brands can use educational content to appear for these 'position zero' results, such as by optimising for 'People Also Ask' and 'Image' results with quick answers. 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.

Pod Point remains in the lead for the most Universal Search results, with a total of 4,162 results. It reports most of these appearances for the ‘image’ category (2,400 results) — the highest of all results across all companies for Universal Search appearances.

The Longtail Keyword Opportunity

Longtail keywords are often considered high intent and potentially more likely to convert as a searcher is being more specific. This builds on what we've discussed within our Organic Performance section, as EV charging companies will want to ensure they have key, transactional phrases within their approach. 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. EV charging companies should look to high-purchase intent phrases, such as 'installation next week' to secure traffic from users most likely to enquire.

Pod Point continues to hold the most appearances for longtail keywords, with 1,133 results in the top 3 positions — over 4 times the amount of the runner-up. Osprey Charging is in position 5/11 for the top 3 positions, though it’s in position 8/11 for positions 4–10, implying that it has a good chance of increasing its position in the top 3 category.

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 brands that operate both at home and within the public, such as EV charge points, Facebook ads are an opportunity to build brand visibility and recognition.

We’ve included 3 examples of Plug Me In’s sponsored posts. All 3 examples have text across 6 lines, and it should stick to a maximum of 3 lines to prevent scrollers from passing by. .

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 brand engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. EV charging companies can build on their content strategy for boosting visibility on 'people also ask' results and longtail keywords to identify trending topics that will be more likely to be shared on social media.

Most of the brands favour Facebook, and IONITY has taken the lead for the largest Facebook group, with 12,500 Likes. Wallbox Chargers continues to have the largest Instagram following (a total of 13,500 — an increase from 13,200 in our previous audit).

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 as they turn elsewhere. Accessibility must be a consideration for brands in any sector - even when it doesn't seem like the most pressing concern, such as in the wider automotive industry.

In our last report, GRIDSERVE stood out with 173 alerts. In this quarter, it’s slightly decreased this figure to 170, with most of these errors coming from redundant title text. This company also has the highest number of contrast errors (52). GRIDSERVE should make efforts to reduce these numbers to improve accessibility for those using a screen reader or those with colour vision deficiencies.

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q1 2024 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.

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