Strike: Out of The Top 10
Strike, a digital agency known for its high paid search exposure, saw a fall in paid search results by 83% (772 to 125) this month. Dropping their Google rank from 7th to 20th, this is their first time out of the top 10 .
You can see from the company market intelligence report below how this decision to pull back on PPC affected Strike’s Google exposure, the number of locations they covered fell as did their average position on the SERPs.
With agencies pulling back temporarily on PPC spending, this provides a great opportunity to get onto the first page of Google for a slightly cheaper CPC & without having to compete so aggressively against the big agency players.
September
October
Digital Agency: Purplebricks
Purplebricks pulled back PPC and saw high organic search results (increase of 1600% compared to September), it’s rare to see digital agencies like purplebricks rank organically as they usually focus their marketing strategy on paid exposure - why rank 4th on Google when you can rank first?
Last month, their organic search exposure accounted for just 2.5% of total exposure, in October, this had risen with organic exposure making up 35% of their total Google exposure. Could this be purplebricks pulling back on PPC or have they shifted their focus to SEO to improve their organic reach?
More than likely it’s a mix of these two methods, a slight and temporary pull back on paid advertising and a focus on organic exposure, this helps them capture the leads that are out there, ensures Purplebricks stays front of mind and keeps spend in check for the uncertain few months ahead.
See how important those extra organic searches were. These likely came from SEO updates, page redesign and optimising conversion/landing pages.
Looking at their site, we can see a shift in tone, moving towards a friendlier approach and more focus on money saving than just saving time/ flexibility which was their previous sales point.
When everyone is pulling the pursestrings, it’s a good move to highlight the human element of your business. It distinguishes you from the big faceless corporations.
Traditional Agency: Knightfrank
Knightfrank (large agency with over 100 branches) moved up 10 spots this month, they saw growth in the organic listings but dropped map and paid exposure (a couple of percentage points so not significant) - their average rank on the SERPs did drop a position from 4th to 5th.
However, the total number of searches they were found on rose by just over 100 searches.
Knightfrank’s Search Term Distribution:
Most of their paid efforts are focused on local estate agent searches (estate agent/letting agent [location]). Unusual as most agencies usually focus their paid efforts on the valuation requests - these have high ROI (it shows more intent from the searcher and valuation leads are often more profitable).
Their paid efforts increased marginally this month compared to September and their location distribution shifted slightly, the focus was still largely on London and the south east but their county level search distribution changed across the board. This could be due to any number of reasons - changes in targeting, a local branch effort or any tweaks to the Google algorithm.
Search Matrix (Logarithmic Scale) Changes
As we’ve been looking through the different sections for this month we’ve noticed a push in organic search results for most agencies. As we move into the quieter season (Winter and Christmas are low moving months for obvious reasons) companies will start updating their on page SEO. When looking at the search matrix we can see this push towards organic results visually.
In September you see the majority of agencies collecting the centre with the portal giants (rightmove, zoopla) holding strong paid and organic spots.
By October, there had been a visual shift rightwards (indicating an increase in organic performance). With more agencies compacted on the x axis, showing zero paid presence.
