Seasonal Trends 
Visibility vs Authority 
Link Acquisition 
Content Performance 
10 minutes Reading time
1-50 Brands ranked
Report Updated July 2021
We’ve jumped headfirst into the toy box with our toy store industry sector report this week. Here, we investigate all there is to know about the industry and how it performs in terms of SEO and online marketing. Within this capsule of knowledge and toy industry statistics, you’ll discover the top performers in online toys, as well as the ones who have thrown their SEO toys out the pram.
A wide range of metrics are analysed, including essentials such as visibility, keyword potential, and page speed. As well as core elements, secondary KPIs are researched, including brand mentions, social scores, and online reputation.
If you’re associated with an online toy store and are looking for the latest knowledge in your online playground, download your free copy of the report using the form above now.
The online toy market has been on the rise this year, gaining 11% in organic visibility overall. Clearly, the brands within have been winding their SEO strategies tight and are achieving some good results. Of course, some brands have done better than others – let’s take a look at the winners.
Massive brand Smyth Toys have seen good gains this year. They’ve shot up by 65%, despite already having a good share of the market. Lego also witnessed a good boost in organic visibility, improving by 49%. Big brands aren’t the only ones with improvements though – Orchard Toys gained over 600% in visibility this year. They’re a site you need to be following.
Although there were some good winners this year, losers do still exist. Hot Wheels, despite being a huge brand, suffered a staggering loss of -67% this year. Hasbro also saw a massive drop, totalling -91%. Ouch. These brands could do with some TLC.
Want to see where your brand came in the visibility league table? Get the free report now.
Here is a quick rundown of the top 10 sites:
If you’re not marketing on social media and expanding your brand’s reach, you’re missing out on a huge marketing opportunity. Brands that focus on getting their message out stay top of mind and tip of tongue, helping them grow in the long term.
To help you understand the digital brand reach environment in more detail, we’ve compiled a digital brand reach league table showcasing the best performers in the toy space. This table considers social media engagement and brand mentions, forming a comprehensive score.
With this, you can see whose sticking in the heads of your dream customers.
The toy brand with the best digital brand reach is Lego. This behemoth brand receives 368,000 searches every month and has an owned social score of 36,569, which is huge when compared to other industries. Although Lego is a big brand and has a lot of leverage, they still have areas to improve.
Other brands doing well in terms of digital brand reach include Build a Bear, Disney, and Smyth Toys.
Want to see where your brand came in the digital brand reach league table? Get the report now.
High competition keywords are difficult to grab, yet they have some of the highest search volumes in any industry, especially toy stores.
Therefore, although they may seem pie in the sky, achieving rankings on these highly competitive search queries can pay off in the long run. If you were to snatch up a top position, imagine the level of traffic that would come flowing your way.
For this reason, we investigated the most competitive keyword in the toy store industry and found the ones you need on your target list ASAP.
As you might expect, the keyword ‘toys’ is the most competitive term in the industry, amassing over 201K searches a month. If you rank for this keyword, it’s safe to assume you’re working hard and deserve applause.
Many brands have already got a top spot, such as Smyths and The Toy Shop. Interestingly, The Toy Shop has two spots on the first page for one high competition term. As both pages are ranking, this is a dream situation for any brand. But cannibalization may not be far behind and they could see both pages drop if they don’t keep a close eye on how that dual-rank progresses.
Want to see more high competition terms just like this? Get the free report now!
As well as high competition, opportunity keywords are also dug up. These little gems help you get to the top of the SERPs fast with little effort and can often be used to outrank around your biggest competitors.
You won’t have to relentlessly build backlinks or painfully outreach content. All that’s needed to rank for these keywords is a little bit of research.
The good news? We’ve done that research for you in this report. Here are the types of elements you’ll need to start rankings for these hidden terms.
A lot of the keywords found in the opportunity keyword report were associated with specific shows and movies. It seems that certain merchandise is not being optimised enough on Google, and there is a massive opportunity for smaller brands to capitalise on this gap.
Toy search terms for shows like Frozen, Power Rangers, and Sonic all receive thousands of searches a month but have very low competitive scores. If a small brand were to create an optimised category for these terms, they could see good results.
Want to see more opportunities just like this one? Get the free report now using the form above.
One of the core elements which drives repeat business is reputation. If you can produce an image that is authoritative and reputable in your industry, your online cart will never be empty again.
Google has been working hard to adjust its algorithm to spot these reputable brands, giving them higher positions in the SERPs as a result of their efforts. One way it measures this is through online reviews, particularly through sites like TripAdvisor.
Therefore, it should be your duty to ensure your reviews are both amazing and displayed on your site to show customers and Google your site is one to trust. To help you improve your reputation, online reviews, and image in the eyes of Google, we’ve put together a list of the best review toy store brands online.
Use this to see where you match up against the competition and learn from the best.
Here are the top 5 brands who are crushing it in terms of online reputation:
Want to see where your brand ended up? Get the report now.
We bang on about page speed a lot here at Salience. It’s just too important to ignore! If your site is slow to load, visitors will bounce and Google will mark you down. Too much rests on this metric, so we had to include a full-page speed analysis on the toy store market. You can thank us later.
With this analysis, you’ll be able to identify the fastest brand in the toy store market and learn from their quick-loading ways.
Here’s what PageSpeed Insights identified as the top 5 fastest Toy store brands:
Interested to see where you came? Get the free report now.
Read more about the importance of page speed here.
This report is free, just like all the reports we perform here at Salience. We create valuable resources brands within can use to improve their online marketing. Grab your free copy using the form at the top of this page.
We have a number of thresholds when it comes to including sites in this analysis. If your site is not included, it may have flown under our radar. However, if you’re struggling to find your brand, get in touch and we can send a personalised report out to you ASAP.
If you want to know anything about the report or are curious about how we can create a bespoke SEO strategy for your brand, get in touch today.
