The Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK high-street banks has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK high-street banks perform across the digital space.
The latest Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK high-street banks has just been published. It covers the largest 12 national high-street banks, including Lloyds, NatWest, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Metro, Santander, TSB, The Co-operative Bank, Virgin Money, Yorkshire Bank, and Clydesdale.
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 high-street banks to win brand exposure, drive online visits, and generate in-branch 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 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 12 high-street banks on, check out our quick-look table below;
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing brands, or request a copy of the report for the full review.
The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each brand 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. UK high street banks should regularly monitor their links to ensure they’re not directing users to broken links, which could cause them to become frustrated.
TSB flagged the highest 4xx errors (327), and this high street bank should fix these errors to avoid broken page links, which can harm a website’s SEO.
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. High street banks should aim for a maximum of 3 seconds for a page to load, as any longer can cause users to become impatient and potentially leave the website.
The mobile site speed for this quarter ranged between 84 and 39, with NatWest reporting the lowest score. This high street bank should reduce page weight to help increase its site speed for consumers looking to register.
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. High-street banks can build their DA by sharing information about money-saving techniques, demographic studies of spending, and guides on different financial products.
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 83 and 63, with all high street banks scoring in the excellent zone and above. However, the one to watch is Yorkshire Bank, which reported backlinks from the fewest domains. It’s important that brands aim to receive backlinks from various websites, as this will benefit their DA score.
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. High street banks will want to follow a successful keyword strategy to assist with their organic traffic. Additionally, a simplified web experience will also encourage users to remain on the website.
Seven brands reported a decline in organic traffic on desktop, with Clydesdale and HSBC both flagging a -8% decrease. Meanwhile, 10 brands saw a decline on mobile, with Santander flagging a -59% decrease.
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. UK high street banks should aim to receive appearances in ‘local pack’ and ‘images’.
Lloyds secured the most Universal Search appearances (28,416), with the majority of these coming from ‘people also ask.’ On the other hand, Yorkshire Bank received the fewest overall appearances (300), and it should use phrases from ‘people also ask’ across its website.
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. High street banks can increase their organic traffic by following a longtail keyword strategy, with keywords such as ‘bank easily online’ and ‘bank followed by location’.
Lloyds secured the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (23,589) and positions 4–10 (43,822). On the other hand, Yorkshire Bank saw the fewest appearances for position 3 (226) and positions 4–10 (399). It should reassess its longtail keyword strategy and monitor which phrases receive the most impressions.
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 UK high street banks, Facebook ads are an opportunity to reach new audiences and promote new branding.
We’ve included an example of Barclays sponsored posts. This UK high street bank should reduce the number of lines of text to help with scannability.
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.
HSBC has the largest Facebook page (3.1 million Likes), while Barclays has the largest Instagram account (65,200 followers). All brands should focus on uploading social media content regularly with topics that aren’t just promoting their services but are beneficial to their 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. All customers are entitled to a user-friendly web experience, and high street banks should take great care to ensure customers with vision deficiencies aren’t placed at a disadvantage when using their sites.
TSB reported the most accessibility alerts (146), and it should focus on reducing these errors to improve the user experience for those on a screen reader. Additionally, Yorkshire Bank flagged the most contrast errors (41) and should take into account the design and colours across its website.
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.