The Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK online opticians has just been published. Learn how the top 10 opticians perform across the digital space.
The latest Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK online opticians has just been published. It covers the largest 10 UK online opticians, including Black & Lizars, Bayfields Opticians and Audiologists, David Clulow, Specsavers, Eyesite, Scrivens Opticians & Hearing Care, Eye Emporium, Vision Express, Duncan and Todd Group, and Leightons Opticians and Hearing Care.
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 opticians to win brand exposure, drive traffic online and, for those with bricks and mortar locations, even increase in-store footfall. 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 Q3 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form below or schedule a call.
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics, we evaluated these top 10 online opticians on, check out our quick-look table below;
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK online opticians 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 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 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. Online opticians will want to ensure that key pages are easy to navigate to and access, such as prescription information, any trial packages they offer, or store locators.
Four of the 10 online opticians didn’t report any 4xx errors, which is great news, as reporting these errors can harm a brand’s SEO. However, Eyesite reported 23 4xx errors — the highest of all companies — and it should assess its links and update any that are broken.
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. For online opticians, they’ll want to ensure their site is fast, and well-prepared for customers to browse new frames on the go.
In our previous report, Vision Express flagged the lowest mobile site speed (31). This quarter, it’s slightly increased this score to 32, though it’s still the company to watch. Overall, the mobile site speed for this quarter ranged between 96 and 32, and brands can make improvements by ensuring they’re using a mobile-friendly website to improve the users’ web experience.
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 nine opticians in our report range from online-only, to well known, long-standing retail chains, we’d expect to see a wide range of scores in domain authority.
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 ranged between 73 and 29, with Black & Lizars reporting the lowest DA score. While this online optician didn’t receive the fewest backlinks, it saw the second to lowest, and adding a blog page to its website will encourage more websites to link back to this brand.
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. We’ve noted that the cost-of-living crisis has impacted traffic levels in many sectors, with consumers putting off purchases of treats and expendables for later dates. However, as opticians provide essential items, we’d expect brands to be able to maintain performance year on year, even if they may be seeing a reduction in traffic to high end ranges, and more traffic to lower to mid-range products.
All online opticians reported an increase in organic traffic on desktop, while Scrivens Opticians & Hearing Care saw a decline in organic traffic on mobile (-37%). On the other hand, Black & Lizars reported the most significant traffic increase (+1,005% on mobile).
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 site can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. For opticians with high street branches, ‘Local Pack’ results are a useful way of dominating SERPs and ensuring they can capture attention from users still looking for an in-person experience.
Vision Express continues to secure the most Universal Search appearances (44,483) — a decline from 48,086 in our previous audit. The majority of these came from ‘reviews’ and ‘images’.
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 brand new search terms as they enter Google’s index. Online opticians may find it particularly useful to optimise for keywords showing both high-conversion intent, and information-seeking phrases that may be more often searched at the consideration phase.
Specsavers continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (13,529) — a slight increase from 13,188 in the last quarter. Specsavers also reported the most appearances for positions 4–10 (19,647). While Leightons Opticians and Hearing Care is further down the scoreboard for position 3, this online optician reported 1,262 appearances for positions 4–10, which is an effective way to increase its results in search engines.
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. Facebook ads provide an opportunity for opticians to quickly reach audiences with offers, new lines, and key products they’re looking to push.
We’ve included an example of Vision Express’ sponsored Facebook posts. This online optician should diversify its images and text to ensure it’s not repeating the same message, which could cause social media users to not engage with the posts.
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. Though Facebook advertising can be used to boost visibility for brands on the platform, having a strong portfolio of content to draw upon helps build a connection with your audience, as well as providing helpful content that guides them down the conversion funnel.
Specsavers has the largest Facebook page (368,100 Likes) and the largest Instagram account (60,900 followers), while Vision Express has the highest total engagement rate (1,799). All brands can increase their engagement rate by asking their followers questions and creating posts that encourage people to react to the post.
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, brands lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere. Online opticians should be particularly mindful of having an accessible site, as being poorly prepared for visually impaired users could not only lose customer confidence but look very poor for their brand!
In our previous report, David Clulow reported 59 accessibility alerts, which it’s increased to 65 this quarter. This online optician should address and amend these alerts, as it’s seen an increase each quarter. This remains the brand with the highest accessibility alerts. We’re pleased to see that Eyesite has reduced its contrast errors from 15 to 9 this quarter, and any improvement should be celebrated.
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.