The Q3 2024 benchmarking report for UK garden and horticulture retailers has just been published. Learn how the top 11 UK garden and horticulture retailers perform across the digital space.

The latest Q3 2024 benchmarking report for UK garden and horticulture retailers has just been published. It covers the largest 11 UK garden and horticulture retailers, including Crocus.co.uk, Thompson & Morgan, J.Parker's, Suttons Consumer Products Ltd., Marshalls Garden, YouGarden, Hayloft Plants, Primrose, Gardening Express, Dobbies Garden Centres, and Harrod Horticultural.

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 garden and horticulture retailers to win brand exposure locally, drive organic visibility, and generate online enquiries. 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 or schedule a call.

Q3 2024 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 11 UK garden and horticulture retailers on, check out our quick-look table below;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's top and poorest-performing garden retailers, or request a copy of the report for the full review.

Request the report

What The Industry Research Report Covers

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.  

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. Garden and horticulture retailers will need to create a website that their audience can trust, which means creating a positive site experience while consumers are looking for products. Ensuring that all links are active and working is one approach to build a trusted relationship with their target audience.

Hayloft Plants flagged 90 4xx errors, and this brand should ensure there are redirects put in place, when applicable, and include an alternative product it can redirect to when a product is removed. Otherwise, its consumers might become frustrated and risk resorting to a competitor’s website.

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. All garden and horticulture retailers should aim for a download speed of a maximum of 3 seconds to prevent consumers growing impatient and leaving the website. Incorporating a mobile-friendly website theme with a minimal design is an effective way to increase site speed.

Brands should aim for a minimum of 50% for site speed. This quarter, the mobile site speed ranged between 65 and 7, with J.Parker's reporting the lowest site speed. Including lazy loading and compressing images will help to increase its site speed — which is important for SEO as well as its consumers’ patience.

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. Brands should aim for backlinks from high-authoritative websites and from a variety of them. The best way to achieve this is by delivering high-quality content that other websites will want to share to their audience.

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. The DA for this quarter ranged between 71 and 35, with Hayloft Plants reporting the lowest DA. This retailer also received the fewest backlinks and should adopt a PR strategy to reach out to websites with a similar target audience.

Organic Performance – Mobile & Desktop

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. It’s expected to see a fluctuation in organic traffic on both mobile and desktop, though retailers can increase their organic traffic by incorporating a successful keyword strategy to help them rank in search engines.

Four retailers reported a decline in organic traffic on desktop, with Primrose reporting a 53% loss. Meanwhile, 8 retailers reported a decline in organic traffic on mobile, with Primrose also flagging the biggest loss there (-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. 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 garden and horticulture retailers, they'll want to capitalise on the opportunity to share ‘images’ and ‘reviews’ for an authentic approach as well as the opportunity to showcase their product range.

Thompson & Morgan reported the most Universal Search appearances (67,676), with Crocus.co.uk close behind at second place (64,536 appearances). Meanwhile, Dobbies Garden Centres received the fewest appearances (7,894) and should ensure all images on its website are optimised.

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 brand new search terms as they enter Google’s index. Longtail keywords for garden and horticulture retailers could show high-conversion intent, with specific phrases that relate to their product range.

Thompson & Morgan saw the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (5,028) and for positions 4–10 (8,412). Meanwhile, Marshalls Gardens reported the fewest longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (361), though not for positions 4–10.

Facebook Adverts

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 are a great way for blinds and shutters brands to reach people who are specifically looking to make improvements to their homes.

We’ve included examples of J.Parker’s sponsored posts. This retailer included 2 lines of text, which is great to cater to those with a short attention span while scrolling social media. Though, it should rework its content to promote its latest product launch.

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. For brands in a service-based sector, such as care home providers, content is an opportunity to create long-term touchpoints with prospective residents and their families, by creating pieces that help support them through managing at home, before guiding them to care home residency when the time comes.

Dobbies Garden Centres has the largest Facebook page (162,700 Likes), and Crocus.co.uk has the biggest Instagram following (75,400 followers). All brands should post social media content containing updates about its company as well as selfless material that’s valuable to its followers to keep them interested in their account.

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. All websites should limit accessibility alerts, errors, and contrast errors to adhere to those using a screen reader and those with a colour vision deficiency. This will require brands to regularly assess these areas on their website to retain a high standard.

Crocus.co.uk flagged 681 accessibility alerts, and Primrose wasn’t far behind with 668 alerts. Gardening Express also raised some concerns with 83 contrast errors. All brands should assess their website regularly and make updates ASAP to avoid harming their accessibility score.

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q3 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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