The Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK EV charging companies has just been published. Learn how 10 of the largest UK EV charging companies perform across the digital space.
The latest Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK EV charging companies has just been published. It covers 10 of the largest national EV charging companies, including Pod Point, InstaVolt, Osprey Charging, Egg, bp pulse, IONITY, GRIDSERVE, Wallbox Chargers, PropCert 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 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.
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 10 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.
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 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. For electric vehicle charging solutions, they’ll want to ensure their website is easy for consumers to navigate, which will help to increase sales and avoid consumers from leaving the website early due to frustration.
GRIDSERVE flagged 198 4xx errors — the highest of all electric vehicle charging solutions. This brand should have a strategy in place where it regularly assesses that links are working and updates any that need deleting or replacing. This is particularly important when creating new pages and when new products are added to the website.
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. Electric vehicle charging solutions should adopt an easy-to-navigate website, as this will help to improve download speeds.
The mobile site speed for this quarter ranged between 94 and 28, with Plug Me In reporting the slowest website speed on mobile. After inspecting its website from a mobile, this brand should reduce page weight, as this will help with download speeds.
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 ranged between 74 and 28, with Propcert reporting the lowest DA score. This electric vehicle charging solutions should create content that’s easily linkable, such as a comprehensive guide or an infographic, as this will encourage other websites to link to them.
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. Due to the cost-of-living crisis, we're seeing that many potential customers across a number of sectors are either cutting back on expendable items, or opting for cheaper alternatives. Electric vehicle charging solutions may feel the impact of this, though they can continue to follow a keyword strategy to improve the results for this category.
Five of the brands reported a decline in organic traffic on desktop, and 5 reported a decline in mobile traffic. On the other hand, Plug Me In saw a 2,871% increase on mobile (the highest of all brands). Other websites can improve their mobile traffic by making their website more suitable for mobile users (such as adopting an easy-to-use checkout process with few steps).
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 brand can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. For electric vehicle charging solutions, they'll want to ensure they're appearing for ‘image’ results.
Pod Point secured the most Universal Search appearances (3,844), with the majority of these coming from ‘people also ask’ and ‘images’. On the other hand, Plug Me In reported a total of 10 Universal Search appearances, and it can make improvements by optimising images on its website.
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. For electric vehicle charging solutions, long-tail keywords could include, ‘home charging solution’ and ‘electric vehicle charging system’.
Pod Point received the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (1,257) and positions 4–10 (2,608). On the other hand, Plug Me In reported the fewest (3 for position 3 and 7 for positions 4–10). It’s important that brands regularly assess their keyword strategy so that they’re using terms their target audience use.
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. 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 examples of Egg’s sponsored posts. This electric vehicle charging solution should limit to a maximum of 3 lines of text, which will encourage more social media users to read the content as they’re scrolling past.
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.
IONITY has the largest Facebook page (14,000 Likes), while Wallbox Chargers has the largest Instagram account (also 14,000 followers). All brands can improve the chances of getting more social media followers by uploading content that’s unique and beneficial to its audience.
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. Brands will want to ensure that their websites have as few accessibility alerts and contrast errors as possible to help with readability.
GRIDSERVE flagged 183 accessibility alerts, with the majority of these due to redundant title text. This brand should assess its titles across all pages and include text that’s descriptive and accurate to particular pages.
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.