The Q4 2023 benchmarking report for UK online appliance brands has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK online appliance brands perform across the digital space.

The latest Q4 2023 benchmarking report for UK online appliance brands has just been published.  It covers the 12 largest national online appliance brands, including AO, Appliances Direct, Euronics UK, Appliance City, Hughes Electrical, Boots Kitchen Appliances, Hotpoint, Beko, Smeg UK, AEG, Miele GB, and MyAppliances.

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 online appliance brands to win brand exposure locally, online views, and appliance orders. 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 six of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 online appliance brands on, check out our quick-look table below;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK online appliance 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 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.  

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 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.

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 online appliance brands, having an easy-to-navigate site is essential for consumers looking into online appliance brands and particular care should be taken of the pathways to key pages, such as best-selling appliances, special offers, and any key feature pages that customers may need to access.

Last quarter, we noted that Boots Kitchen Appliances had 309 4xx errors. In Q4, it’s reduced this figure to 54, demonstrating that it’s checked for blocked links. However, Euronics UK still has 306 4xx errors, and it needs to assess its website and assess any blockages to reduce this figure by the next 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 will see a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. Online appliance brands need to ensure their customers have a positive experience on their mobile site to instil high levels of trust and ensure customers are able to quickly access the information they need about their potential new appliances.

We have seen universal falls in mobile page speed across all sectors we specialise in. Hughes continues to sit at the bottom with the slowest site speed. Last quarter, it scored 19%, and this quarter it’s seen a decrease to 6%. This online appliance brand should consider compressing images to reduce file size, making the consumer experience more user-friendly.

Building Competitive Advantage with Domain Authority

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. Online appliance brands should be continually pushing to improve their DA, they can do this by collaborating with and outreaching to external publications and bloggers within their niche to build their backlink profile.

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. This quarter, the DA rating ranges between 41 and 74, which is an improvement from 30 to 74 last quarter. AO holds the highest DA yet again, and it also has the largest number of backlinks (816,590) — an SEO strategy that helps to improve a website’s DA. Boots Kitchen Appliances has made an improvement from 31 in the last quarter to 41 this quarter.

Organic Performance – Mobile & Desktop

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 online appliance retailers (where the customer buyer journey is longer than in the FMCG market), they should be optimising across a full range of awareness, consideration, and conversion keywords, ensuring they have multiple touchpoints for customers as they travel further through their decision-making process.

Boots Kitchen Appliances and AEG are the only brands to increase their YoY mobile traffic this quarter. Appliances Direct encountered the biggest drop in mobile traffic (-41%).

Universal Search Opportunity

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 retailer can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. Online appliance retailers 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' results, so they can ensure they're making a sound investment in their new appliance.

Images remain an important feature of the online appliance SERP landscape, with 'image' being the most prevalent Universal Search result in Q4. AO continues to secure the top position for the overall number of universal searches (a total of 89,447). This brand also has the largest number of searches for ‘images’ (a total of 57,400).

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 new search terms as they enter Google’s index. There are many longtail keyword options online appliance brands could be using such as ‘best place to buy washing machines’, ‘where to buy fridges online’, or 'hotpoint oven next day delivery'. Though these may have lower monthly search volumes, the high purchase intent makes them high-value and an important piece of your keyword strategy.

AO is ranking as number one for the most appearances for longtail keywords. Currently, it’s ranking higher for positions 4–10 in search engines than 1-3, suggesting that it should make improvements to its keyword implementation to increase its appearance higher up in search results. Boots Kitchen Appliances has seen progress for the number of appearances in the top 3 positions in search engines (from 38 last quarter to 121 this quarter).

Facebook Adverts

With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) forecasted to hit over 42 million users by 2022, it is not surprising that brands 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 in 2019. For online appliance brands, Facebook ads are an opportunity to ensure customers see product releases, updates, and deals.

Hotpoint’s Facebook ads are centered around the same topic, with some slight tweaks around verbiage to suggest it’s testing engagement rates. This appliance brand uses vertical videos to make the content more user-friendly for mobile users to view.

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 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 different appliance styles and special offers.

Facebook is the preferred platform for the majority of brands. Beko’s seen an impressive increase in the total number of engagements, from 29 in the last quarter to 2,277 this quarter. However, it encountered a very slight drop in Facebook Likes and Instagram followers but still outshines the rest of the brands (this fluctuation is to be expected in a forever-developing social-media-dominated world). Euronics UK is no longer the least-followed appliance brand and has moved up the scoreboard.

Website Readability & Accessibility

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. When websites are not designed to meet these needs, even subconsciously, brands lose customer interest as they turn to other online appliance brands that can better meet their accessibility requirements.

Appliances Direct has increased its number of alerts from the last quarter to 244, showing that it’s not made any improvements to its site accessibility. Euronics UK has the highest number of contrast errors (37), though Appliances Direct isn’t too far behind. Both Appliances Direct and Appliance City have the highest number rate for complex words, which both brands can reduce to assist with their readability ranking.

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.

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