The Q3 2023 benchmarking report for UK Gold bullion dealers has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK Gold bullion dealers perform across the digital space.

The latest Q3 2023 benchmarking report for UK Gold bullion dealers has just been published.  It covers the largest 12 national Gold bullion dealers, including BullionVault, BullionByPost, GOLD.co.uk, UKBullion.com, The Gold Bullion Company, Physical Gold, ATS Bullion, Atkinsons Bullion & Coins, The Royal Mint, Baird & Co., and Chards.

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 gold bullion dealers to win brand exposure locally, drive traffic online, and generate 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 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.   

What The Industry Research Report Covers

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.  

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 click 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. Gold bullion dealers will want to ensure key pages, such as investment guides, are clearly signposted and available for users to visit.

Ten of the twelve gold bullion dealers have very low levels of technical errors, with the exception of BullionByPost and Chards, who returned 847 and 957 4xx errors respectively. Though Chards is showing the highest level of errors, this is a significant reduction since our last report, when we found 2,360 present on the site.

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. As a luxury investment item, gold bullion dealers will want to ensure their sites are quick and give an excellent brand impression from every digital touchpoint.

In our last report, we noted that mobile page speed scores for gold bullion dealers ranged from 15 to 95, with BullionVault leading the way. In Q3, these scores ranged from 59 to 11, with GOLD.co.uk now coming out on top. Though BullionVault has seen its score drop to 35, we are seeing large falls in mobile page speed across all the sectors we specialise in, so this shouldn't cause immediate concern.

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. Gold bullion dealers can look to engage with a digital PR specialist to identify any potential backlink opportunities and develop attention-grabbing campaigns that boost organic visibility.

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. We have seen a slight change since Q1, with DAs now measuring from 17 to 75. Though BullionVault was scoring the lowest of all dealers previously, they have now gained 9 points to reach 26 and have taken over their next closest competitor.

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. As consumers turn to alternate ways of investing and keeping their finances safe in the cost of living crisis, we would expect the search terms and trending content around gold bullion to change. Dealers with a good grasp of these changing interests and leading topics will be best placed to maintain their organic performance.

We looked at how all twelve gold bullion dealers have performed compared to last year. In our last report, we noted that only five gold bullion dealers had increased their traffic year on year. In Q3, this has reduced to only two - The Royal Mint and Atkinsons Bullion & Coins. The biggest loss was seen by BullionVault, which lost 59% of its 2022 traffic.

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 retailer can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. 'People also ask' is a useful Universal Search opportunity for gold bullion dealers, who can address common queries about investing in gold bullion, capturing attention and traffic from those exploring the investment potential.

'People also ask' was the most-used Universal Search feature of Q3, with The Royal Mint making the most appearances, with 5,100 results. A strong performance on 'people also ask' queries can often indicate a similarly strong performance in longtail keywords, as both these metrics point to well-optimised long-form content

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 retailer new search terms as they enter Google’s index. Gold bullion dealers should pay particular attention to terms indicating a high-purchase intent as, though these may be low-traffic, they are more likely to secure sales.

ATS Bullion and BullionVault are ranking for the fewest longtail keywords overall. Though BullionVault is ranking for the fewest, ATS Bullion has secured only 6 top three appearances, fewer than BullionVault's 30. ATS Bullion can first look to their existing rankings to improve on this figure, before expanding their strategy to identifying new, high-potential keywords. 

Facebook Adverts

With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) forecast to hit over 42 million users by 2022, 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.

The Royal Mint are the only gold bullion dealer utilising Facebook Ads. Below, we've included their ads from Q3, along with our last report in January. The Royal Mint has turned from lifestyle imagery focussed on the investment element of gold bullion, to featuring commemorative coins following the coronation of King Charles III.

The Royal Mint Facebook Ads, January 2023 - 

The Royal Mint Facebook Ads, July 2023 - 

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 retailer engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. Sharing information about gold bullion investment is a great way of creating shareable content that is likely to pick up traction.

Facebook is the primary platform for all gold bullion dealers, with the exception of UKBullion.com who are most present on Pinterest. The Royal Mint are the only dealer to have an organic following on Meta's platforms, with 457,700 Facebook likes and 61,900 Instagram followers.

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. When websites are not designed to meet these needs, retailers lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere. Accessibility should be at the forefront of any brands strategy, particularly when asking users to place large amounts of trust in your service, such as investment.

In our last report, we noted that Physical Gold was seeing the largest amounts of accessibility alerts with 220. We have seen no improvements for Physical Gold in Q3, with alerts having now slightly increased to 129.

Q3 2023 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 gold bullion dealers on, check out our quick-look table below;

GET THE FULL 79-PAGE Q3 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.

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash