How Superdrug is Winning UK Beauty Search

Someone sees a product on TikTok. Gets a recommendation in a group chat. Remembers a brand from years ago. Does a quick Google. That’s the “research” for most beauty purchases. The consideration stage often isn’t so long. People aren’t reading five guides and building a spreadsheet. They’re doing a product search, a quick price check, a trust check on reviews and delivery, then buying. Because for most, the word of their favourite influencer goes.

So why do beauty retailers keep building content strategies designed for customers who don’t exist? The real game isn’t informational clicks. It’s to win the high-intent click and not waste it. One UK retailer’s data shows what that looks like at scale. And if you’re running search for a beauty brand in 2026, it should make you uncomfortable.

 

Superdrug is top for organic traffic, and growing faster than the market

The data comes from the 2026 Salience Index for Beauty Retailers, a 12-month report covering UK beauty retail performance across traffic, authority, trust signals, and brand reach.

Superdrug sits #1 on “Traffic Scores” with:

Traffic Score is an estimated organic search traffic figure built from keyword rankings, search volume, and estimated CTR by position. It’s not Google Analytics data, it’s a standardised comparison method across domains. So we’re not arguing about exact sessions. We’re looking at relative performance. And relative to the sector, Superdrug is out in front. The UK beauty retail market saw an 18% increase in overall traffic scores. Superdrug grew 28%. That’s a 10-point gap against the competition. The pie is getting bigger. And Superdrug is taking more than their share.

 

The first click is the whole game

Qualifying intent is more important than ever. Providing the correct user journey upon first click is critical. That’s not an informational-query problem. That’s a commercial UX + site architecture + SERP alignment problem. Because the biggest-volume keywords in beauty are savage, and they’re not “cute blog terms.”

From the “High Competition Keywords” list:

If someone lands on your site from “moisturiser” and you greet them with a muddled category, weak filtering, thin stock signals, and a trust section buried in the footer, you’ve paid the cost of ranking and then thrown the click away. In 2026 SERPs, you don’t get many spare clicks to waste.

 

Brand demand changes how you compete

This is the part most beauty teams underplay, right up until it’s too late. Superdrug is #5 in the “Brand Awareness Market Leaders” table with:

One and a half million people typing “Superdrug” directly into Google every month. The report spells out why this matters: people using brand terms “know exactly what they are looking for” and are more likely to convert. They’re not researching. They’re arriving pre-sold. Pre-sold to Superdrug’s service and product offering.

This is how beauty search is shifting:

• TikTok and creator content often drive product memory, not neat category browsing
• People come to Google already “pre-sold” on a brand or product
• That creates a heavier brand + product search mix

So if you’re thinking “we’ll just win more generic SEO,” you’re playing only half the match. Superdrug is winning both halves.

 

Trust. Trust. Trust.

Beauty is a trust purchase. Not because it’s regulated like finance, because it’s personal. If someone is putting something on their face, they’re not gambling on a site that looks shaky or where reviews feel thin. Superdrug is listed as a “High Reviewed Site” with:

And the report’s “Trust” section is clear on what shoppers use to judge you: online reviews, transparency, expert endorsements, and secure site signals.

The consumer behaviour data reinforces it:

• 90% read online reviews before visiting a business
• 36% are highly likely to use a business that responds to all reviews
• 98% read online reviews for local businesses

So if your SEO plan is “rank, then hope,” you’re missing the link between SERP behaviour and on-site decision-making. Reviews aren’t just a checkbox. They’re a CTR lever in search results (star snippets), a conversion lever on-site, and, when structured properly, an objection-answering machine for the concerns people actually have. Things like shade accuracy, sensitivity, delivery reliability.

 

The bottom line

The UK beauty market grew 18% last year. Some brands still went backwards. The difference isn’t “better SEO.” It’s understanding that research happens in minutes. The decision happens on the first click. Superdrug’s data shows what winning that decision looks like. Brand demand that pulls 1.5 million searches by name, trust signals that make the click feel safe, and landing pages that don’t waste the traffic they’ve earned. If you’re ranking but not converting, the problem probably isn’t your rankings. It’s the page not matching the job the user came to do.

 

Where beauty demand is actually created

There’s one more dynamic shaping all of this that deserves its own section. The first search increasingly isn’t happening on Google at all. TikTok is the discovery engine. Instagram is the consideration engine. Google is often just the final validation step, “where can I buy this” or “is this brand legit.” This changes everything about how beauty search actually works.

 

The discovery has already happened

When someone types “korean skincare” or “retinol serum” into Google, they’re not starting their research. They’re finishing it. They saw something on TikTok three days ago. A creator they follow mentioned it. The algorithm showed them the same product from four different accounts. By the time they hit Google, they’re often pre-sold. They just need to find a trusted place to buy. This is why brand search matters so much in beauty. Superdrug’s 1.5 million monthly brand searches aren’t coming from thin air, they’re the result of brand recognition built across touchpoints, including social platforms where purchase intent gets created before it ever reaches a search engine.

The language is changing in real-time

Here’s the practical implication: the keywords people use on Google are increasingly TikTok language. “Skin cycling.” “Latte makeup.” “Clean girl aesthetic.” “Strawberry girl summer.” “Glazed donut skin.” These terms didn’t exist two years ago. Now they drive real search volume, and the brands that spotted the trends early have category pages ranking for them while everyone else is still figuring out what they mean. The report’s opportunity keywords like “retinol serum” (2,900 searches, competitiveness 3) and “dark spot corrector” (1,000 searches, competitiveness 2) aren’t just category terms. They’re often the clinical names for products that went viral under a different language on social platforms.

 

Final thought

The UK beauty market grew 18% last year. Some brands still went backwards. The difference isn’t “better SEO.” It’s not even “better content.” It’s understanding that beauty purchase decisions happen fast, get shaped on social platforms before they ever reach Google, and live or die on the first-click experience. Superdrug’s data shows what winning looks like. Brand demand that pulls 1.5 million searches by name, trust signals that make the click feel safe, landing pages that don’t waste traffic, and, crucially, a position strong enough to capture demand no matter where it originated.

 

What to read next

Download the full Beauty Retailers Salience Index →100+ brands, 11 indicators, all the data behind this spotlight.

Revolution Beauty spotlight → How PR and “dupe” positioning drove 54% organic growth by leaning into social search.

Digital PR services → Build the brand demand that SEO alone can’t create.