The Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK tool and equipment rental services  has just been published. Learn how the top 11 UK tool and equipment hire services perform across the digital space.

The latest Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK tool and equipment rental services has just been published. It covers the largest 11 UK tool and equipment rental services, including Speedy Hire, National Tool Hire Ltd, UK Tool Hire Limited, HSS Hire Service Group Limited, Toolstation, Sunbelt Rentals UK & Ireland, Nixon Hire, Premier Plant Hire, GAP Group Limited, Brandon Hire Station, and Ardent Hire Solutions.

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 UK tool and equipment rental services to win brand exposure, drive online views, and increase in-store footfall (where relevant). 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.

Q4 2024 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just six of the metrics we evaluated these top 11 UK tool and equipment hire services on, check out our quick-look table below;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK tool and equipment hire services or request a copy of the report for the full review.

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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 and 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. Tool and equipment rental services should ensure their websites are technically compliant by enhancing the users’ experience, which includes reducing 4xx errors to limit users being sent down dead ends.

Nixon Hire reported the most 4xx errors (30), followed by Speedy Hire with 25 4xx errors. These services should reduce these errors to avoid them negatively impacting the user experience and overall website credibility. Otherwise, there’s a risk that customers will become frustrated and potentially lose trust in the brand.

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. Tool and equipment rental services should take site speed into account, as 53% of users leave a website if it doesn’t load in 3 seconds. Faster loading times keeps users engaged so they’re more likely to browse the website.

The mobile site speed for this quarter ranged between 83 and 14, with 4 brands scoring above 50% (the minimum recommended site speed). The brand to watch is Brandon Hire Station, which reported the lowest score. After examining this website on a mobile, this brand should optimise and compress images and even consider reducing image size.

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 is not gained through sponsored ads. Tool and equipment rental services should focus on uploading shareable content that other websites with a similar target audience will want to backlink to. Developing PR campaigns and building relationships with other brands allows them to expand their audience reach and increase their backlinks, too, which will have a positive effect on their DA score.

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 70 and 11, with UK Tool Hire Limited flagging the lowest DA score. This tool and equipment rental service should focus on receiving backlinks from various domains, as this will help to improve its DA score. Building connections with other brands will help to achieve this.

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 important that tool and equipment rental services focus on continuously increasing their organic traffic through an effective keyword strategy and an optimised web experience (a simple interface, healthy loading times, etc.).

Three of the brands reported a decrease in organic traffic on desktop, while 5 saw a decrease on mobile. With this data in mind, all services should ensure their website is mobile-friendly, taking into account a smaller screen.

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. Tool and equipment rental services should make use of optimising in ‘images’ and ‘reviews’.

Toolstation secured the most Universal Search appearances (284,147), with the majority of these coming from ‘reviews’. However, 6 services received zero appearances in this category and should encourage customers to leave an online review.

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. Tool and equipment rental services can expand their audience reach and increase their organic traffic by adhering to a longtail keyword strategy, with keywords including ‘tool and equipment rentals’ or ‘high-quality rental provider’.

Toolstation secured the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (13,476) and positions 4–10 (37,910). All brands should regularly assess their keyword strategy to ensure they’re using terms that their target audience types into search engines.

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. For UK tool and equipment rental services, Facebook ads are an opportunity to promote new products and deals and reach out to new audiences.

We’ve included an example of Toolstation’s sponsored posts. This tool and equipment rental services included vertical videos to cater to social media users on a mobile.

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 a long period of time. It's great for your engagement, but great for Google, too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time.

Toolstation has the largest Facebook page (150,700 Likes) and the largest Instagram account (45,000 followers). All brands should focus on social media content that benefits their audience, rather than solely being focused on promoting their products.

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 customers are entitled to a user-friendly web experience, and tool and equipment rental services should take great care to ensure customers with vision deficiencies aren’t placed at a disadvantage when using their sites.

Nixon Hire reported the most accessibility alerts (362) and should focus on reducing these errors to make the web experience more universal and suitable to those with reading difficulties or for those using a screen reader.

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q4 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.

Photo by Zac Edmonds on Unsplash