Seasonal Trends
Visibility Vs Authority
Link Acquisition
Content Performance
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Brands Ranked
Updated November 2023
"I am massively grateful for this report and there aren't many other useful ones I have found for online flower services."
- Arena Flowers, Data Scientist, Aaron Grove
"Really impressed with the work done behind the research, really well done to the team and Salience"
- Funding Options, Head of Organic, Sonia Morrison
"The report it was very interesting as has been the case in previous years."
- BOX, Marketing Manager, Mike Hart
Every year we release our Salience Index, which deep dives into a specific sector regarding their marketing and SEO. Within our online plants and gardening marketing report, we review the overall performance of the 50 most prominent players in the industry. You can find the best marketing data over the past year, and SEO metrics such as visibility, page speed, brand reach and more.
Our online plants report gives a snapshot of the industry over the past year and is a great way to see where you’re at in terms of your competitors and give you the best marketing tips and tricks so you are ready to bloom for the next year. You can have all these insights for free and download the full report right here, or you can read below for a quick inside scoop.
The Online Plants Market Leaders
Over the past year, the market as a whole has seen some massive wins, it's absolutely blooming with 61% growth YoY; looks like more people are getting their green thumbs out.
With that, there are 10 brands that are dominating the space, these are the ones to watch and are paving the way for the rest of the market. The brands leading the industry in our online plants and gardening report are:
1. dobbies.com
2. thompson-morgan.com
3. bloomandwild.com
4. crocus.co.uk
5. gardenia.net
6. primrose.co.uk
7. gardeningexpress.co.uk
8. sarahraven.com
9. jacksonsnurseries.co.uk
10. jparkers.co.uk
Visibility Wins In The Online Plants Report
With the market growing 61% YoY that leaves a lot of room for individual brands to be increasing their visibility.
Congratulations to all our top 5 winners in terms of visibility in our online plants nursey market report. The winners and their YoY growth difference are:
1. dobbies.com (122%)
2. thompson-morgan.com (33%)
3. gardenia.net (59%)
4. gardeningexpress.co.uk (181%)
5. jacksonsnurseries.co.uk (99%)
Wow! We can see that these brands are all found within the market leaders, and clearly it pushed Dobbies to the number one spot. These are the brands that you should be looking at for what is going right in their marketing campaigns.
Visibility Losses In The Online Plants Report
Unfortunately, where there are wins there must also be losses. If you’ve lost visibility the past year don’t worry, as this can be recovered and, most of all, take it as something to learn from. SEO changes all the time, and so should your marketing strategies.
The top 5 visibility losses in our online plants marketing report and their YoY differences are:
1. bloomandwild.com (-8%)
2. patchplants.com (-25%)
3. hayesgardenworld.co.uk (-14%)
4. longacres.co.uk (-16%)
5. ashridgetrees.co.uk (-43%)
Not all is lost, you just need to freshen up and water your SEO and you’ll be back to blooming in no time! We can still see Bloom and Wild in our leaders list, so losses aren’t always the be-all and end-all.
Online Gardening Market Keywords & Trends
A good way to gain visibility in the world of SEO is through trends and keywords. First let’s cover keywords, these can be split into high-competition and opportunity keywords.
High-competition keywords are those which are high in search volume but also very competitive, all the other brands are going after these terms make it harder to rank high. Some of the high-competition keywords in our online gardening market report are: ‘hydrangeas’ with a 56 competitiveness rating and 74,000 SV, followed by ‘peace lily’, and ‘snake plant’.
Opportunity keywords are also high in search volume but have low-competition, making them easier to rank for, offering a big boost in traffic and visibility. Some of the gardening and plants market opportunity keywords are: ‘wooden planters’ with 0 competitiveness and 18,100 SV, followed by ‘indoor plant pots’, and ‘garden planters’.
Now onto trends, these are great to know what to focus on and what to maybe draw back on when planning your SEO strategies. In our online plants marketing report we cover emerging and receding brand and product trends, but for now we will just cover emerging products. Some of these are: ‘grass seed’, ‘salvias’, and ‘plant nursey near me’, which shows the importance of local SEO.
Related: Local SEO Cheat Sheet.
Focusing on these keywords and trends are key to gaining some lost visibility or continue to grow your brand. Through optimising PLPs or including these in your strategies can help increase traffic and therefore revenue. For more insights you can download our free plants nursey market report today.
Social Media In The Online Plants Nursery Report
Expanding your SEO marketing campaign to touch on your social media platforms is a key aspect of digital marketing. Making sure your brand and your products are in the forefront of a user’s mind even before the buying journey begins can help influence brand searches and can even directly connect to your site’s visibility and conversions.
In our online plants nursey and gardening report we dive into each brands social data and give them an owned social score as well as looking into their brand reach. The top player in the social scene is none other than Waitrose Garden, dominating Twitter and Facebook with a total following count of over 860,000 and an owned social score of 1,553.
Their digital marketing and social media strategy is combined with their main site, but is all about sharing helpful video and image content. From gardening tips and tricks to harvesting food and using it for delicious recipes. It seems like the key here is to combine indoor and outdoor plants and gardening to herbs, vegetables and fruits.
However, Waitrose Garden Centre only comes 5th in our brand reach score despite coming 1st in our social media data, with 9,900 brand searches per month. First place here goes to Bloom and Wild with 135,000 brand searches per month, these are still one to watch as they are second on the social media table with an owned social score of 863.
Bloom and Wild dominates Facebook and Instagram and is all about the flowers and plants. They utilise both photo and video content, post helpful content on their highlights and stories such as care tips and sustainability and even integrate Instagram’s shop features to allow users to seamlessly buy products.
For more insights or to see where your brand is placed in the social media world, download our free plants and gardening market report today.
Top Reviewed Sites In Our Online Gardening Report
Trust is extremely important in SEO and should be a part of your marketing campaigns. When buying online people want to know that your products and brand are trustworthy.
You can do this in a lot of ways, in the online plant nursey market people want to know that you are the expert in taking care of plants as well as gardening tips, so good ways to show this and build authority is through educational guide and blog content. Read more on our post about How Patch Plants Use Educational Content.
Another way to show that your brand is one to trust is through signposting reviews on your products and services.
In our online plant nursey market report we’ve included the sites with the best reviews, the top 10 are:
1. bloomandwild.com
2. longacres.co.uk
3. crocus.co.uk
4. plants4presents.co.uk
5. yougarden.com
6. patchplants.com
7. gardenersdream.co.uk
8. beardsanddaisies.co.uk
9. thompson-morgan.com
10. dobbies.com
We can see a few of these in our leaders list, so it’s clear that reviews and trust is important for visibility. To see where your brand is, download our free online plant nursey marketing report.
Fastest Sites In Our Online Plants Market Report
Page speed is also an important factor to focus on in your SEO marketing campaigns. Content and trust isn’t all that’s needed to succeed so don’t ignore the technical foundations of your site.
When shopping online people want things quick and fast, so if your site is slow they will exit your site and you’ve lost a potential customer. Making sure you optimise your site for fast page speed and mobile use is key.
Read More: Why Is Pagespeed Important.
The top 10 sites with the fastest page speed in our online gardening and plants report are:
1. paramountplants.co.uk
2. ashridgetrees.co.uk
3. gardeningexpress.co.uk
4. houseplant.co.uk
5. farmergracy.co.uk
6. evergreendirect.co.uk
7. plants4presents.co.uk
8. bethchatto.co.uk
9. dobbies.co.uk
10. squiresgardencentres.co.uk
We can see a few of these in our leaders showing it’s a key aspect to grow your site. To know where you fall into the page speed section, download our free online plants market report to see both desktop and mobile page speed scores.
Download Our Free Plant Nursey Marketing Report
Focusing on technical aspects as well as trust and content all work together in your SEO campaign, so make sure you look at all in optimising your site. You can have all the above and more in full detail in our free plant nursey and gardening marketing report, just download it and it’ll be in your inbox shortly.
These reports are great tools to see where you land against your competitors as well as the best tips for optimising your site. For more, check out our Home and Garden Industry Reports.
If you don’t see your brand, don’t worry, we do have your data; our plant market report would just be too long if we included every single brand. If you’re interested in seeing your data we can give you a personalised report to include your information. For a personalised report, SEO-filled chats, or a free SEO audit of your site from our experts, contact us today. We’d love to get our green thumbs out!
