A report looking into the performance of a range of online optical retailers has been released by Salience. In the report, online retailers are assessed by metrics including visibility, site authority, keyword utilisation, digital brand reach and online reviews. Utilising data from May 2020, Salience’s report revealed both positives and negatives for some of eyewear’s biggest retailers.
Online visibility is a major concern for online retailers, as these company’s e-commerce sites rely on new and organic web traffic to generate revenue. Visibility generally refers to how present certain websites are in search engine results, and without it the number of potential customers to any given site is much reduced. According to the report, the biggest winners in terms of online visibility were Specsavers, Glasses2you and The Optic Shop. Glasses2you saw the biggest percentage increase from May 2019 at 264%, while Specsavers saw a 4% increase. However, Specsavers’ visibility increased from an already high 18,761 to 19,592, while Glasses2you’s figure rose from 362 to 1,318.
Commenting on the large percentage increase, Glasses2you’s director Russel Andrew said: ‘During lockdown we have seen a large increase in traffic and orders but the visibility increase is mostly down to the SEO (search engine optimisation) work we have been carrying out in the background, which takes into account many factors. It is also helped by our fantastic reviews and position on Trustpilot, all of which helps with visibility and traffic.’
Some optical retailers also lost out in terms of online visibility compared to May last year. Vision Express saw its 2019 figure of 10,942 fall by 46% to 5,895, while Ace & Tate dropped by 59% from 1,612 to 653.
Site authority
A high visibility score does not necessarily translate to an effective e-commerce site; a website’s authority, how well sites perform within search results, plays a part too. Salience’s report explains that sites with high visibility and low authority have laid good foundations, but can benefit from increasing their search marketing activity. ‘As a general rule, there is a positive correlation between the number of inbound links and domain authority. Likewise, there is a positive correlation between domain authority and the potential the site has to rank [in search engine results]’, explained Salience.
Sites with high visibility but low authority perform under their potential, and according to the insight report include fashioneyewear, Spex4Less and The Optic Shop.
Keywords
One of the most useful ways to improve e-commerce functionality is to include competitive keywords in site marketing. According to the report, the most competitive search term for the month of May in 2020 was ‘cat eye sunglasses’ with 8,100 searches, followed by ‘Versace sunglasses men’ with 4,400 searches and ‘Ray-Ban round sunglasses’ with 2,900 searches.
For smaller brands however, Salience recommended utilising opportunity, rather than competitive, keywords to build online exposure. Opportunity keywords are terms with less competition but high search volume. The best terms include terms ‘reading glasses’, ‘prescription sports glasses’ and ‘swimming goggles prescription’.
Salience divides its analysis of keyword utilisation between those companies who are already performing well, those performing ineffectively and those with the biggest potential for quick gains with optimisation of key word use. Smaller online retailers, including Opticians Direct, Spex4Less and EyeBuyDirect fitted into this category. Those already using keywords most effectively were larger optical retailers, including Specsavers, Vision Direct and Glasses Direct.
Reviews and reach
Online customers attribute high levels of importance to customer reviews and make purchasing decisions based on rankings. Salience ranked eyewear retailers through a combination of number of reviews and average score, placing Glasses Direct in first place with a review score of 4.5/5 from 109,956 reviews. Vision Direct came in second with a review score of 5/5, although this was from a lower 73,744 reviews. Zenni Optical, SelectSpecs and Vision Express made up the remaining top five.
Another major indicator for effective marketing is the amount of direct searches for a brand name, as this indicates how well-known the brand is. Specsavers dominated this ranking in the Salience report, with 673,000 brand searches per month, and was followed by Vision Express and Glasses Direct with 20,100 and 165,000 searches per month, respectively.