The Q1 2026 benchmarking report for UK house builders has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK house builders perform across the digital space.
The latest Q1 2026 benchmarking report for UK house builders has just been published. It covers the largest 12 national house builders, including Barratt Homes, Berkeley Group, Crest Nicholson, Taylor Wimpey, Bellway, Redrow, Persimmon, Bloor Homes, Countryside, Miller Homes, Bovis Homes, and Linden Homes.
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 house builders to win brand exposure, drive online enquiries, and generate show home viewings. 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 take-aways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 house builders on, check out our quick-look table below;
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's top and poorest-performing house builders, or request a copy of the report for the full review.
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.
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 under-perform. 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.
Pay-Per-Click marketing is constantly evolving, with more and more advertisers being forced to hand over a lot of control to Google's algorithms as the push for automation grows ever stronger. There are still key elements of control that we have though, the main one of these being budget which is ultimately something the algorithms can't take from you. That's why being smart with your budget and ad coverage is essential to achieving strong results and bettering what your competitors have to offer.
For Q1 2026, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK house builders was £14,948 with some of the top players in the market spending a considerable amount on areas and audiences unlikely to deliver a return. We can see this in more detail when looking at the average monthly cost per cost-per-click (CPC) amongst advertisers, with the average of this metric being £6. This highlights how competitive the market is and how important it is to control your budgets effectively.
There are varying monthly ad budgets across the competitors in the report. While this gap highlights the competitive advantage that larger budgets can provide, it's not just about spending more; it’s about spending smarter. By focusing on driving efficiency in campaign management, targeting, and budget allocation, businesses with smaller budgets can still effectively compete with larger players. Investing in data-driven strategies and refining ad performance can help close the gap and maximise the return on every pound spent, enabling growth even in a competitive landscape. Relative to their spend, both Miller Homes and Bloor Homes reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £3, and Bellway has the highest at £9.
The report highlights the importance of budget efficiency by comparing monthly ad spend with estimated CPC in relation to your competitors, see who has the highest and lowest CPC. To maximise the effectiveness of your budget, it’s essential to focus on driving CPC down while maintaining or improving campaign performance. In this report, Linden Homes has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £23,000, and Barratt Homes has the highest at £416,000.
By optimising targeting, refining ad copy, and leveraging data to identify high-converting opportunities, you can ensure every click delivers maximum value. This approach not only stretches your budget further but also boosts your return on ad spend (ROAS), enabling you to achieve stronger results without simply increasing expenditure.
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. House builders have the benefit of not needing to juggle large volumes of product pages, which can often be a stumbling block for ecommerce sites, but they must still ensure that key pages are clearly signposted and easy to find.
In our previous audit, Redrow received the most 404 errors (741). This quarter, Redrow has made great improvements to reduce their 404 errors to 10 — no longer making them the brand to watch. Currently, Bovis Homes reported the most 404 errors (22). 404 errors can reduce user satisfaction. A website that regularly presents broken pages can make visitors feel that their time is not valued. By minimising these errors and ensuring links lead to relevant content, websites can create a more positive and reliable experience for their users.
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. House builders will want to give a positive impression of their brand from each digital touchpoint, ensuring that their site is quick and easy to use, so as not to put off potential home buyers.
In our last audit, Redrow reported the slowest mobile site speed (17). This quarter, Redrow has increased their mobile site speed to 29, moving them up a position. Currently, the mobile site speed ranges between 91 and 11, with Crest Nicholson reporting the slowest score. A fast mobile site speed can greatly improve the overall user experience. When pages load quickly, users can access information without unnecessary delays. This creates a more positive impression of the website and encourages visitors to continue browsing.
Domain authority is an essential metric for measuring the effectiveness of SEO performance, and helps create a reliable overall gage of how effective your site is at achieving organic traffic, i.e. ‘free’ traffic that isn’t gained through sponsored ads. House builders can look to include outreach to local news sites (in areas they're building in), home-bloggers, and interiors publications to gain backlinks and improve referral traffic.
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 report, Miller Homes, Linden Homes, and Bloor Homes received the lowest DA score (57). This quarter, Bovis Homes is at the bottom of the leaderboard, scoring 53. Both Linden Homes and Miller Homes decreased their score to 54, and Bloor Homes has increased their score to 58. Websites can increase their domain authority by consistently creating high-quality and informative content. Search engines tend to favour websites that provide valuable information to users, and well-researched articles, guides, and resources can help establish a site as a trustworthy source within its industry.
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. Changing consumer habits and mortgage rates will have impacted the new home sector, as prospective buyers may be holding off on a new house purchase for when interest rates fall.
Three brands reported a drop in organic traffic on desktop, with Berkeley Group flagging the biggest loss (-22%). On mobile, two brands reported a decrease in organic traffic, with Crest Nicholson seeing the biggest loss (-37%). Organic traffic differences between mobile and desktop reflect the different ways people interact with the internet. By understanding these behavioural patterns and optimising websites for both experiences, businesses can improve their visibility and provide a better experience for users on any device.
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. 'Image pack' and 'local pack' results are key for house builders to raise interest in their homes directly from the SERP, and build awareness of new developments in key areas.
Taylor Wimpey continues to secure the most Universal Search appearances (25,945) — an increase from 13,110 previously. The majority of their appearances came from ‘images’ (23,400).
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. For house builders, they will want to keep an eye on high-conversion potential keywords, including mentions of bookings, mortgages, locations, and availability.
Taylor Wimpey continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (4,339) — an increase from 4,041 previously. Taylor Wimpey also continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 4–10 (6,468) — overtaking Barratt Homes. A benefit of longtail keywords is that they can support content planning. By researching the specific phrases people are searching for, websites can identify topics that are important to their audience. This allows businesses to create useful content that addresses real user needs.
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.
We’ve included screenshots of Bloor Home’s sponsored Facebook posts. Timing and frequency also affect engagement. Posting when audiences are most active and avoiding overexposure keeps sponsored content fresh and responsive.
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. As with developing DA scores, house builders can look to creating informational content on anything to do with home ownership, from mortgage applications, to facilities in local areas, and even house maintenance.
Barratt Homes secured the most Facebook Likes (193,200), and Taylor Wimpey secured the most Instagram followers (106,800). Facebook was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Bellway received the highest total engagement rate (8,048), and Barratt Homes received the highest average engagement (326).
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. For house builders, having an non-accessible site will also send the message that their homes themselves may not be accessible for those with vision deficiencies.
In our last audit, Miller Homes reported the most accessibility alerts (511). This quarter, Miller Homes remains the brand with the most accessibility alerts, and they’ve slightly increased their total to 512. Improper heading structure is another major cause of accessibility alerts. Headings that are used purely for styling rather than structure can confuse screen reader users who rely on headings to navigate a page. Skipping heading levels, such as jumping from an H1 to an H4, can also trigger alerts and disrupt logical content flow.
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.