SEO Competitor Analysis: What Do Removals Firms in London Need to Do to Beat Their Competition

Discover what the competitive landscape looks like for removals companies in London in this report. In this competitor analysis, firms who offered removals in London were our main focus. We examined which firms are utilising successful SEO strategies or missing opportunities for growth.

For companies looking to boost their online traffic and sales, this data is extremely useful. In fact, it can be applied to your own business or niche, not just the removals industry.  

In this report, we will be conducting an SEO competitor analysis of the top 10 removal companies in London. This is based on rankings for the target keyword: “removal company london”.

Overall, the report will cover:

•  Keyword Overview
•  Competitive Landcape
•  Top 3 Competitors Analysis

Competitive Landscape will cover:

•  Top 10 Competitors
•  Domain Authority
•  Keyword Search Traffic
•  Overall Website Traffic Growth
•  Search Positions
•  Backlinks
•  Top 3 Ranking Positions

 Top 3 Organic Competitors Analysis will cover

•  Content Analysis
•  Backlinks Analysis
•  Backlink Growth Analysis
•  Paid Advertising Analysis
•  Display Advertising Analysis

Combined, there are 1900 average monthly searches for the keyword “removal company london”.

As a result, the keyword difficulty is 61%. This indicates that it would be “hard” for a new website to rank first on Google for “removal company london”. 

Overall, the average price advertisers pay for a user’s click on an ad is £6.03.  

Next we’ll look in more detail at the competitive landscape to see which companies are ranking. As well as how well each removal company is performing with their current SEO strategies.

First, we’ll analyse the top 10 positions on Google for our target keyword. 

It appears that 4 of the top 10 ranking positions for the keyword “removal company london” are not removal companies.

And, the 2nd, 3rd and 6th ranking positions are held by comparison sites. The 7th position is held by an online culture magazine. However, this leaves only 6 actual removal sites. 

The removal company with the highest domain authority is The Aussie Group (aussiegroup.co.uk). And this company has a domain authority of 38.

Whereas, The London Removal Company, ranked 4th, has the lowest domain authority (13). 

Domain Authority (DA) is a score that predicts how likely a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). The highest is DA 100, with the lowest score being 1. Naturally, all websites should aim for a higher domain authority.

However, let’s move on and see how much traffic is being directed to these removal sites from our target keyword.

In October 2020, The Aussie Group had the vast majority of the search traffic for the keyword “removal company london”.

As such, they received 47% of the 1900 monthly searches. 

Overall, the top 10 competitors received an estimated 62.58%* of the 1900 monthly search traffic.

* This does not include competitors that are not removal companies – such as comparemymove.com and timeout.com.

Further analysis of the top 10 URLs receiving traffic from searches for our keyword shows that:

•  Overall 6 are homepages
•  With 3 being comparison landing pages
•  And 1 is a magazine blog post

Evidentally, all the top 3 removal companies for the keyword “removal company london” have had inconsistent traffic.

In October 2020, The Aussie Group had 9,835 website visits.

However, the removal company at the bottom of the top 10 rankings is Fantastic Removals. Despite this, they had the second highest website traffic (8,589 website visits). 

Fantastic Removals has the highest number of top 3 search positions (124).

As a result, they have 55% of all the top 3 search positions held by the top 10 competitors. 

Again, Fantastic Removals has the highest number of backlinks (18,740). 

And they have 90% of the top 10 competitors combined backlinks. 

A follow backlink or “dofollow” backlink indicates to search engines that your website is worth linking to. 

In terms of follow backlinks, Elephant Removals has the highest percentage (92.58%).

And they have 90% of the top 10 competitors combined follow backlinks (61.14%). This is why they are ranked higher than Fantastic Removals, despite the difference in total backlinks.

So, which removal companies have been in the top 3 search positions? 

In the 6 months between April 2020 and September 2020 the top ranking position changed four times.

The top spot has been held by:

•  aussiegroup.co.uk (twice)
•  comparemymove.com (three times)*
•  removalreviews.co.uk (once)*

* These are not removal companies.

The Aussie Group was the only removal company that featured in the top 3 ranking positions for the keyword “removal company london”. 

At the time of this report, the top removal companies competing for the keyword “removal company london” are:

•  aussiegroup.co.uk (position 1)
•  thelondonremovalcompany.co.uk (position 4)
•  elephantremovals.co.uk (position 5)

Let’s look at each company in a bit more detail.

Despite their namesake, The Aussie Group provides services in the UK and mainland Europe. 

Visit the website.

And the services listed on the website menu are:

•  Man & Van
•  Removals
•  Office Removals
•  International Removals
•  Storage
•  Handyman Service
•  Cleaning Service
•  Crate Service London

The London Removal Company was founded in 2000. And they: 

“offer a wide range of removals and storage services”. 

Visit the website.

The services listed on the website menu are:

•  Domestic move
•  Man & Van
•  Office moves
•  Packing
•  Storage
•  International

Elephant Removals describe themselves as:

“a Haulage London Company, experts in Logistics and Haulage services, specialises in Residential Transport and offers competitively priced hauling services across the UK and overseas destinations”. 

Visit the website.

And, the services listed on the website menu are:

•  Packing Service London
•  House Removals London
•  Office Removals London
•  Man Van London
•  Small Moves London
•  Crane Hoist Rental
•  Furniture Disposal
•  Porter Hire
•  Handyman Service
•  Part Group Moves
•  Student Moving Service

Next, we’ll look at how each company optimises their site for each of the services they offer. 

We analysed how well the top 3 competitors optimised their websites for their service keywords. Here’s what we found…

The Aussie Group has only 1 service keyword that they do not rank for.

However, 34% of all of the website keywords (631 keywords) are related to the services listed in their website menu. As such, this suggests that they are optimising certain service keywords effectively. 

Despite being a removals companies first and foremost, the most frequent service keyword is “storage” with 198 instances.

In comparison, The London Removal Company has 3 service keywords that they do not rank for. This presents an opportunity to optimise the website to start ranking for some key services.

Overall, 20% of all of the website keywords (22 keywords) are related to the services listed in their website menu. This is good but means there is some scope for improvement. 

However, the most frequent service keywords are “Man and Van” and “Storage”. Each with 5 instances.

Much like The London Removal Company, Elephant Removals has 3 service keywords that they do not rank for.

And only 4% of all the website keywords (52 keywords) are related to the services listed in their website menu. 

The most frequent service keyword is “packing” with 52 instances.

Of course, Elephant Removals has the largest opportunity for keyword optimisation.   

The Aussie Group’s top page is a service page.

And the page, aussiegroup.co.uk/removals generates 40.86% of its overall website traffic.

Second and third place, respectively, are:

•  aussiegroup.co.uk/man-van (service page)
•  aussiegroup.co.uk (homepage)

Overall, these three pages generate 81.26% of the website’s traffic.

The London Removal Company’s top page is its homepage. This generates 99.53% of its entire website traffic.

Second is:

• thelondonremovalcompany.co.uk/services/man-and-van-london/m25-map/(an image of greater london)

Combined, these two pages generate 99.99% of the website’s traffic.

Elephant Removals’s top page is its homepage which generates 50% of its website traffic.

Second and third place, respectively, are:

•  elephantremovals.co.uk/london-councils (directory listing page)
•  elephantremovals.co.uk/westminster-removals (service page)

Overall, these three pages generate 59.93% of the website’s traffic.

Overall, Elephant Removals have the largest amount of backlinks (12,571).

And, The London Removal Company has the least amount of backlinks (198). 

Overall, Elephant Removals also has the highest percentage of Follow Backlinks (92.58%).

Whereas, The London Removal Company has the least amount of follow backlinks (71.68%). 

In February 2015, The Aussie Group had 1 backlinks.

And their largest backlink growth happened between June 2017 and November 2019. As such, during this period they acquired 7,390 backlinks.

However, more recently (November 2019 to September 2020), The Aussie Group lost almost half of these. 

This was a 49% decrease, losing them 3,737 backlinks in total. This presents an opportunity for those companies below them in the search engines results. As a result, it’s now easier for them to catch up. So, with a backlinking strategy in place, their competition could take advantage of this. 

In November 2014, The London Removal Company had just 1 backlink.

However from November 2014 to April 2019, their backlink acquisition growth was slow.

This suggests that the company had no SEO or backlinking strategies in place.

However, their backlink acquisition peaked in April 2019. As a result, they acquired 274 backlinks.

Though, by September 2020, they had a slight decrease. Thus, dropping from 274 backlinks to 220. 

In June 2013, Elephant Removals had 21 backlinks.

However, their largest backlink growth happened between May 2017 and April 2019. During this time, they acquired 26,542 backlinks. This suggests that they invested in a backlinking strategy. 

However, similar to The Aussie Group, following this peak, Elephant Removals lost 14,907 backlinks.

Equating to a 43% decrease.

As such, in September 2020, they were sitting on 12,825 backlinks.

In January 2012, The Aussie Group had 318 monthly visits.

However, by September 2020, their monthly visits had increased 2900% to 9,540.

In January 2012, The London Removal Company had 63 monthly visits. Considerably less than The Aussie Group. 

However, by September 2020, their monthly visits had increased 584% to 431. 

In January 2012, Elephant Removals had 2,302 monthly visits.

Unlike their competitors, by September 2020, their monthly visits had decreased by 35% to 1,485. 

In September 2020, The Aussie Group was the only one of top 3 competitors investing in paid advertising. This is likely why they sit higher in the rankings for more of their service keywords.

However, since January 2015, their estimated paid search traffic has been slight and erratic. 

As a result, their largest investment in paid advertising happened in August 2019 when they spent £12,787.

And their average paid advertising spend has been between £4000 and £5000.

Subsequently, this investment in paid search traffic had a direct impact. Namely, on the number of keywords they rank for in the top 3 Google ranking positions.

Though, this peaked in May 2015, when they acquired 171 Top 3 keywords. 

In this competitor analysis, removals in London was our core focus. And various removals firms were presented and analysed. Our findings have shown that each removal firm has at least spent some time optimising their website. However, an emphasis on content marketing could elevate their rankings further.

Overall, for other removal companies to rank well in London, they first need to overtake the top 3. For instance, Fantastic Removals. To do this, they should invest in a comprehensive content marketing strategy. 

That said, any one of the top 3 companies in this report can hold onto their respective crowns. As long as they spend some time working on a detailed SEO strategy. One that builds on their existing successes. 

For instance, with just a little on-site optimisation for target keywords. Alongside some well-written relevant content, any one of these removal companies can widen (or bridge) the gap between their competitors. 

However, a little paid advertising can give them the boost they need. Though as demonstrated, this isn’t always the best option for long-term growth in this industry. Especially in terms of website traffic. While paid ads may improve your traffic in the short-term, you need to dedicate a substantial amount of time to keep it going.  

Of course for many companies and business owners, investing time and resources can be difficult. Especially for new companies or removal firms just starting out.

And that’s why some businesses hire a marketing consultant, such as myself. My team and I can devise a strategy that works for your business and implement it for you. And we can even optimise your existing content or create new content. We have what it takes to help you beat your competitors and get the traffic (and sales) you deserve.  

Alternatively, we can provide you with your own detailed competitor analysis report. Find out exactly what your competitors are doing. And then learn what you can do to outrank and outperform them.

As such, you might enjoy our previous reports: 

• What Accountants in Manchester Need to Do to Beat Their Competition
• SEO Competitor Analysis: Employment Lawyers in London
• Legal Services Competition Analysis: Crisp & Co vs Slater and Gordon Lawyers

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