The Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK pharmacies has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK pharmacies perform across the digital space.
The latest Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK pharmacies has just been published. It covers the largest 12 national pharmacies, including Boots UK, Well Pharmacy, LloydsPharmacy, Superdrug, PillTime, Pharmacy2U, Weldricks Pharmacy, Chemist Direct, Chemist4U, Pharmica, The Independent Pharmacy, and Assured Pharmacy.
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 pharmacies to win brand exposure, drive online views, 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 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 pharmacies on, check out our quick-look table below;
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK pharmacies 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. Pharmacies should take care of the pathways to key pages, such as best-selling products, FAQs, or seasonal health advice.
LloydsPharmacy flagged the highest 4xx errors (327), and they should regularly assess links across their website. Otherwise, users might become frustrated at being sent to broken links, causing them to potentially lose trust in the brand.
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. This is especially important for customers wanting to find their local pharmacy's contact details or to make an order online quickly, from their mobile device.
In our previous report, Chemist Direct flagged the slowest mobile site speed (21). This quarter, they’ve increased this score to 31. Superdrug is now the brand to watch with a mobile site speed of 23. Some steps this pharmacy can take to increase their mobile site speed is making images as lightweight as possible (such as reducing their size and compressing them).
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. Pharmacies can look to collaborate or outreach to publications and bloggers who sit within the health and wellbeing niche to develop their backlink profiles, but can also tie into seasonal events, such as travel health, to expand in other categories.
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 rating for this quarter ranged between 83 and 29, with Assured Pharmacy flagging the lowest score. This pharmacy has a blog page but should regularly upload content to encourage authority websites with a similar target audience to provide backlinks to their website. Additionally, removing any replacing broken links will help to improve 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. The cost of living crisis is having a wide-reaching impact across many of the sectors we specialise in, with pharmacies being no exception. While pharmacies may have been a natural destination for toiletries and medications, shoppers are now more likely to be buying cheaper alternatives as part of their supermarket shop, or even buying in bulk from online retailers like Amazon.
Six pharmacies saw a decrease in organic traffic on desktop (Weldricks Pharmacy reported the biggest loss of -57%). Additionally, 6 pharmacies saw a decline on mobile (Weldricks is also the one to watch with a 67% reduction). This data shows that brands have a better chance of receiving organic traffic on desktop and should ensure their website is mobile-friendly to help make improvements on another device.
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. Pharmacies can primarily utilise 'FAQ' and 'people also ask' results to share health information directly from the SERP, along with using 'local pack' results to capitalise on local shoppers looking for nearby pharmacies.
Boots UK has the highest number of Universal Search appearances (383,966), with the majority of these coming from ‘reviews’ and ‘images’. In our previous audit, PillTime reported 137 overall appearances, which it’s slightly decreased to 105 this quarter. This pharmacy should include more phrases from ‘people also ask’ across its website to improve its overall figure for Universal Search appearances.
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. Pharmacies can look at brand-specific keywords to improve visibility on longtail keywords, along with terms such as 'next day delivery' to capture traffic from customers needing products quickly.
Boots UK continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (98,843) — a slight decrease from 106,955 in our previous audit. However, Assured Pharmacy is the one to watch, as it reported the fewest appearances for position 3 (23). This UK pharmacy should research keyphrases based on competitor research to ensure they’re using phrases their target audience types into 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. Pharmacies can use Facebook ads to generate interest and traffic to seasonal campaigns, such as products for summer holidays or winter colds.
We’ve included an example of Superdrug’s sponsored post. This pharmacy included a maximum of 3 lines of text to help with scannability as social media users are scrolling their feed.
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 pharmacies, social media is an opportunity to share informational content that ties into popular topics, such as must-pack essentials for holidays, advice for boosting your winter immune system, or a guide to common vitamins and supplements.
Boots UK has the largest Facebook page (1.4 million Likes), while both Boots UK and Superdrug have the largest Instagram accounts (1.1 million followers). It’s important that brands give social media users a reason to follow their account by including content that benefits them, rather than just posting about their products.
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. While accessibility should be a key concern across all sectors, pharmacies (along with any brand within the healthcare sector) must take particular care to present an accessible website, reducing the risk of any ordering errors and ensuring that anyone who needs access to the site can reach it.
Boots UK is still the one to watch, with 2,173 accessibility alerts — an increase from 2,081 in the previous quarter. Boots UK should assess their website for image alt txt, ensure all anchor text is accurate, etc. Accessibility alerts can harm a user’s experience with the website, making them more likely to leave earlier and potentially resort to a competitor.
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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