SEO Competitor Analysis: Can Architects in London Design a Successful Marketing Strategy?

SEO competitor analysis architects in london. Architect with a large looking glass looking at a graph. In the centre of the looking glass iis a silhouetted image of the London skyline

While adept at planning, designing and constructing successful buildings and structures, how do architecture firms shape up when it comes to SEO and content? Our competitor analysis begins with the keyword “Architects in London”.

Introduction

In this report, we will be conducting an SEO competitor analysis of the top 3 ranking positions for the keyword: “architects in london”.

The report will cover:

  •  Keyword Overview
  •  Competitive Landscape
    •  Top 10 Organic Competitors
    •  Domain Authority
    •  Keyword Analysis
    •  Search Traffic Landing Pages
    •  Organic Search Positions
    •  Backlinks and Referring Domains
    •  Top 3 Ranking Positions
  •  Top 3 Organic Competitors Analysis
    •  Service Keywords Analysis
    •  Content Analysis
    •  Traffic Growth Analysis
    •  Backlinks Growth Analysis

Keyword Overview

keyword volume and keyword difficulty for 'architects in london'

Overall, there are 1300 average monthly searches for the keyword “architects in london”.

The keyword difficulty is 69% which indicates that it would be “hard” for a new website to rank on the first page of Google for this keyword.

And the average price advertisers pay for a user’s click on an ad is £1.81.

There are 196 related keywords with a total search volume of 161,980. As well as an average keyword difficulty of 67.31%.

Top 10 Competitive Landscape

Organic Competitors

Overall, 7 of the top 10 ranking positions for the keyword “architects in london”,  are architecture firms.

The other four ranking positions are held by directory listings pages. As well as a blog post and an awards body.

Interestingly, the first ranking position isn’t an architecture firm and is held by Houzz.co.uk.  Houzz connects “homeowners and home professionals with the best tools, resources and vendors”.

However, the highest-ranking architecture firm is PLP Architecture (plparchitecture.com).

The lowest ranking architecture firm is Scenario Architecture (scenarioarchitecture.com) which ranks in 10th position.

artchitects in london keyword top ten competitors

Domain Authority

Houzz.co.uk has the highest domain authority (70 Domain Authority Score).

The architecture firm with the highest domain authority is plparchitecture.com (46 Domain Authority Score).

 

And the architecture firm with the lowest domain authority is ksrachitects.com (27 Domain Authority Score).

architects in london - top architecture firms ranking for keyword

Keyword Analysis: “architects in london”

The top 10 competitor receiving the highest search traffic volume from the keyword “architects in london” is houzz.co.uk.

Overall, houzz.co.uk receives 37.85% of the estimated 1300 monthly searches.

The architecture firm receiving the highest search traffic volume from the keyword “architects in london” is plparchitecture.com. In fact, it receives 12.96%.

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In October 2020, the top 10 competitors received an estimated 91.32% of the 1300 monthly keyword search traffic.

Search Traffic Landing Pages

Half of the search traffic landing pages are homepages.

And these landing pages are all owned by architecture firms.

However, the architecture firm that bucks this trend is scenarioarchiteture.com (position 10).

The page that receives their search traffic for the analysed keyword is an ‘About Us’ page.

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Highest Number of Top 3 Search Positions for Keyword, “architects in london”

Houzz.co.uk has the highest number of keywords that rank in the top 3 search positions (12,771 top 3 search positions).

However, the architecture firm that has the highest number of keywords that rank in the top 3 search positions is architectureforlondon.com which has 88 top 3 search positions.

Coffeyarchitects.com had the lowest number of keywords that rank in the top 3 search positions (4 top 3 search positions).

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Top 10 Backlinks

Houzz.co.uk has over 10.5 million backlinks which pales in comparison to the top 10 competitors with the highest number of backlinks which is archdaily.com with 46.4 million backlinks.

However, the architecture firm with the highest number of backlinks is scenarioarchitecture.com (11,819 backlinks).

And the architecture firm with the lowest number of backlinks is ksrarchitecture.com (1,401 backlinks).

keyword 'architects in london' backlinks for top competitors

Top 10 Follow Backlinks

The top 10 competitor with the highest number of follow backlinks is archdaily.com which has 99.01%.

However, the architecture firm with the highest number of follow backlinks is scenarioarchitecture.com. This firm has 95.46%.

The competitor with the lowest number of follow backlinks is ksrarchitects.com which has 54.46%.

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Top 3 Ranking Positions for Keyword, “architects in london”

Between May 2020 and September 2020, the top-ranking position for the keyword “architects in london” was held by krsachitects.com.

Interestingly, they are the only architecture firm that has remained in the top 3 ranking positions since January 2020.

However, they slipped into third place in October 2020 and outranked by houzz.co.uk and the architecture firm: plparchitecture.com.

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Top 3 Competitors Analysis

We will now focus our analysis on the top 3 architecture firms ranking for the keyword “architects in london”:

  •  plparchitecture.com (position 2)
  •  ksrarchitects.com (position 3)
  •  coffeyarchitects.com (position 5)

PLP Architecture

“PLP Architecture is a London-based group of architects, designers and thinkers who value the transformative role of ideas and the capacity for architecture to inspire.”

PLP Architecture homepage, seo competitor analysis for keyword architects in london

Visit website

Overall, the project types listed on their websites are:

  •  Office & Headquarters
  •  Retail
  •  Hotel & Residential
  •  Research & Education
  •  Civic & Cultural
  •  Mixed-use
  •  Renovation
  •  Transportation
  •  Masterplan & Urban Design

KSR Architecture & Interior Designers

“KSR believes that buildings should respond to clients needs and respect their local environment, each design an individual realisation. They should also be timeless, of the highest quality materials with minimal impact on the environment. A building is a legacy for our client and for the locality.”

KSR Architecture Homepage, seo competitor analysis for keyword architects in london

Visit Website

There are just two project types listed on the website, these are:

  •  Architecture
  •  Interior Design

Coffey Architects

“Founded in 2005, Coffey Architects has built a strong reputation for designing beautifully crafted, intelligent buildings that creatively add value…”

Coffey Architects homepage, seo competitor analysis for keyword architects in london

Visit Website

The project types listed on the website are:

  •  Workplace
  •  Cultural
  •  Housing
  •  Homes
  •  Urban Design

Top 3 Competitors: Service Keyword Analysis

We analysed how well the top 3 competitors optimised their websites for the service keywords present in their website menus.

PLP Architecture

PLP Architecture has 6 out of 14 service keywords that they do not rank for.

8% of all of their keywords (71 keywords) are related to the service keywords listed in their website menu.

The most frequent service keyword is “office” with 48 instances.

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KSR Architecture & Interior Designers

14% of all of KSR Architecture & Interior Designers’ keywords (33 keywords) are related to the service keywords listed in their website menu.

The most frequent service keyword is “architecture” with 22 instances.

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Coffey Architects

Coffey Architects has 3 out of 5 service keywords that they do not rank for.

1% of all of their keywords (3 keywords) are related to the service keywords listed in their website menu.

The most frequent service keyword is “homes” with 2 instances.

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Top 3 Competitors: Content Analysis

PLP Architecture Top Pages

PLP Architecture’s top page is its homepage which generates 51.92% of its total website traffic.

Second and third place, respectively, are:

  • com/22-bishopsgate.html (project page)
  • com/bankside-yards.html (project page)

Collectively, these three pages generate 64.93% of the website’s traffic.

KSR Architecture & Interior Designers Top Pages

KSR Architecture & Interior Designers’s top page is its homepage which generates 74.11% of its website traffic.

Second and third place, respectively, are:

  • com/camley-street-skyline-st-pancras (project page)
  • com/luxury-home-architects (service page)

In total, these three pages generate 88.25% of the website’s traffic.

Coffey Architects Top Pages

Coffey Architects’ top page is its homepage which generates 85.88% of its website traffic.

Second and third place, respectively, are:

  • com/project/apartment-block (project page)
  • com/project/hidden-house (project page)

Unlike the previous two competitors, these three pages only generate 91.46% of the website’s traffic.

Let’s look at the backlinks of each site in more detail. This will help to give us a better understanding of how each website reached their current positions.

Top 3 Competitors: Traffic Growth Analysis

PLP Architecture Estimated Traffic Growth

In January 2012, PLP Architecture had 277 website visits.

Their traffic peaked in October 2019 when they received 9,940 visits.

In October 2020, they had 7,776 website visits.

This was a 21.77% decrease in 12 months.

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KSR Architecture & Interior Designers Estimated Traffic Growth

In February 2016 (the website received no traffic before this date), KSR Architecture & Interior Designers had 428 website visits.

Their traffic peaked in July 2018 when they received 2,964 visits.

In October 2020, they had 537 website visits.

This was an 81.88% decrease in 14 months.

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Coffey Architects Estimated Traffic Growth

In January 2012, Coffey Architects had 139 website visits.

Their traffic peaked in September 2018 when they received 4,240 website visits.

In October 2020, they had 985 website visits.

This was a 76.76% decrease in 25 months.

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Top 3 Competitors: Backlinks Growth Analysis

PLP Architecture

In June 2013, PLP Architecture had 5 backlinks.

Their backlinks peaked in May 2019, when they had 6,474 backlinks.

By October 2020, their backlinks had decreased 16.72% to 5,391 backlinks.

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KSR Architecture & Interior Designers

In November 2014, KSR Architecture & Interior Designers had 1 backlink.

They continued to steadily acquire backlinks until February 2020 when they had 1,558 backlinks.

Over the next 6 months they lost 25% of their backlinks and in August 2020 they had 1,172 backlinks.

This decline was followed by a steep increase in backlinks and in October 2020 they had 1,866 backlinks.

This was a 59.21% increase.

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Coffey Architects

In June 2013, Coffey Architects had 1 backlinks.

Their backlinks peaked in May 2019, when they had 3,458 backlinks.

By October 2020, their backlinks had decreased 55.32% to 1,545 backlinks.

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Key Competitor Questions Answered

Anyone looking to understand or break into this arena will usually ask some or all of the following questions:

1.     Do we think that a newcomer could break into this market or would it be really hard?

This is a bit of a mixed picture.

From a practical point of view, we estimate a newcomer would need backlinks from at least 58 high quality websites to rank in the top 10 for this keyword.

Therefore, there is a level that would need to be reached before a newcomer could break into the top 10 results for London architect related keywords.

This would require a good website, an SEO focus, content marketing and outreach activities to reach that goal. But, as with any marketing strategy, this would take time, resources and effort.

However, this effort would only really start to show after a year or so of consistent content marketing and SEO optimisation.

But here is the key thing: None of the architecture businesses we looked at actually create content outside of showcasing completed projects and how they work.

So, if you were an architecture firm and were happy to seriously invest in content marketing, you could topple these competitors with relative ease.

2.     Are there one or more dominant players in this keyword area as we normally see?

In the UK, the most dominant players for this keyword are PLParchitects.com, KSRarchitects and houzz.co.uk.

PLP architects are the really the main player to beat from an organic perspective. But they have plenty of SEO issues and don’t really create much, if any, content.

Overall, KSR architects only rank for 7 or so keywords, so aren’t that great. In fact, they only rank for one keyword: “Architects London”.

Houzz creates loads of content, but are a different beast altogether. Mostly because they are a marketplace for architects and other professional services.

Therefore, if you are a newcomer, it would make sense to focus your efforts both online and on Houzz, as KSR architects have.

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Ensure you are being seen both on your terms and via all the leading tools too.

3.     Is there room for growth in the market?

In short yes, if you really want it.

KSR and PLP don’t really have a content marketing strategy in place. They simply upload existing projects to their website.

In fact, at the time of writing (Nov 2020), KSR architects last post was in Dec 2019.

marketing in architecture

And there wasn’t much here.

PLP Architects do a much better job, but have split themselves into two websites (PLPlabs.com and plparchitecture.com) and most of their blog posts are short or project or concept oriented.

It is clear that whilst content is important, they are approaching their content purely from a business linear business / client perspective (We create this, send to clients, get sales), rather than an online content marketing perpersective.

None of these leaders created loads of content orientated for their audience, allowing Houzz to dominate.

From this perspective, it is obvious that Houzz will continue to dominate the market as they are only players really leading with their content marketing.

If KSR or any of their competitors focused on their content marketing, then they could make a shift and expand the market.

The key challenge is one investment, as content marketing and seo takes consistent effort and time before results are earned.

It is easier and less riskier just to work with Houzz, rather than to invest in content marketing.

But we wouldn’t expect the search market to make a shift until a business decides to take up the gauntlet, whether that be a marketplace competitor or an individual architect.

4.     Who do we think is in the best position for SEO / content growth?

Anyone who wants to change their approach!

5.     What are the 3 key improvements which could be applied to all architecture businesses?

  • Better content marketing, especially focused on the London market
  • Be more customer led, rather than product led
  • Focus more time on outreach activities

6.     Do we think any of these businesses has a content or SEO strategy in place?

If we remove Houzz, then no. No one is really focusing on their content marketing in a way that will really change anything.

As a result, this leaves an obvious potential opportunity to be filled. The question we are really asking is this: When will an architecture firm decide to rise to the occasion and dominate this area?

 

Do you want us to answer another question or focus on a different industry? Leave us a comment below and we will get back to you.

How Hiring a Marketing Consultant Can Help

Of course, for many business owners, it can be a challenge to invest the resources and time necessary to beat your competition.

And that’s where a marketing consultant, such as myself could help. My team and I will devise and implement a winning strategy that works for your business. In addition we’ll optimise your existing content too. 

As a result, we’ll help you outrank and outperform your competitors. And, most importantly, increase your website traffic and sales.

Alternatively, if you’d like a bespoke SEO competitor analysis report tailored for your business, get in touch. Discover exactly what your competitors are doing well and not so well and how to beat them. 

Did you find this competitor analysis helpful?

About Murray Dare

Murray Dare is a Marketing Consultant, Strategist and Director at Dare Media. Murray helps UK businesses find better ways to connect with their audiences through targeted content marketing strategies.