Being an SEO company we often find ourselves looking at spreadsheets of data which mean nothing to most people then identifying how website’s have achieved rankings in Google.
Today we have been looking at the Pound Shops Online and what surprised us most is the traffic volumes that are achieved for specific brand keywords.
Poundland.co.uk
Poundland on the high street represents AMAZING VALUE for money and has grown into a high street essential. Poundland’s first store opened in Burton Upon Trent in 1990 and there are now over 400 stores in the UK. In 2014 the company was floated on the London Stock Exchange and in 2015 Poundland exceeded over £1 billion turnover making this definitely a company to take note of.
This popular brand name which started off life on the high street now gets 301,000 searches per month alone for its own brand name. Comparing that to keywords like “sweets” which gets 40,500 and “stationery” which gets 27,100 it makes us take note of the consumer driven brand traffic. Even “Christmas presents” only gets 18,100 per month and the Disney film Frozen gets around 18,100 which mean consumers are hungry for bargains and hitting Google search for hot deals.
The keyword “pound shop” gets 18,100 searches per month and this is one of the biggest competitors to Poundland directly.
Looking in Google Trends we can see a steady growth which has really taken off in the last 4 years.
Poundland Interest Over Time
Poundland Regional Interest
Related Topics & Searches
This investigation clearly shows a huge growth online for the brand and it’s no wonder others are producing similar ideas as the concept becomes heavily profitable.
My Supermarket – www.mysupermarket.co.uk
In our research we looked in-depth at www.mysupermarket.co.uk which has an amazing organic profile with 35.9 thousand keywords being ranked in Google. Looking at the keywords achieved for this domain it is very clear that SEO techniques work well.
Below is a list of keywords achieved with more than 10,000 searches per month.
| Keyword | Position | Search Volume | CPC |
| asda | 8 | 6120000 | £0.49 |
| compare the market | 13 | 1220000 | £0.97 |
| tesco groceries | 5 | 368000 | £0.33 |
| tesco groceries | 12 | 368000 | £0.33 |
| asda groceries | 5 | 246000 | £0.21 |
| asda groceries | 6 | 246000 | £0.21 |
| mysupermarket | 1 | 201000 | £1.74 |
| asda price guarantee | 9 | 165000 | £3.93 |
| tassimo | 11 | 90500 | £0.36 |
| tesco online | 14 | 90500 | £0.49 |
| my supermarket | 1 | 74000 | £3.52 |
| asda online | 2 | 60500 | £0.31 |
| tesco uk | 2 | 60500 | £0.40 |
| lidl offers | 18 | 60500 | £0.09 |
| tassimo pods | 3 | 49500 | £0.49 |
| morrisons offers | 4 | 49500 | £0.40 |
| aldi offers | 5 | 49500 | £0.10 |
| www.tesco.com | 14 | 49500 | £0.72 |
| tesco wine | 12 | 49500 | £0.27 |
| tesco online shopping | 7 | 40500 | £0.92 |
| sainsburys groceries | 8 | 40500 | £0.60 |
| morrisons online | 18 | 40500 | £1.42 |
| ferrero rocher | 6 | 40500 | £0.36 |
| jack daniels | 3 | 40500 | £0.78 |
| asda photo | 15 | 40500 | £2.29 |
| jagermeister | 9 | 40500 | £0.63 |
| slim fast | 8 | 33100 | £0.62 |
| asda online shopping | 6 | 33100 | £0.54 |
| asda toys | 16 | 33100 | £0.45 |
| www.asda.co.uk | 8 | 33100 | £1.19 |
| asda price | 6 | 33100 | £1.39 |
| asda price | 7 | 33100 | £1.39 |
| asda price | 5 | 33100 | £1.39 |
| electric toothbrush | 18 | 33100 | £1.08 |
| pancake mix | 18 | 27100 | £1.10 |
| asda price check | 6 | 27100 | £3.10 |
| asda price check | 7 | 27100 | £3.10 |
| asda price check | 4 | 27100 | £3.10 |
| asda price check | 5 | 27100 | £3.10 |
| tesco toys | 16 | 27100 | £0.20 |
| aldi uk | 10 | 27100 | £0.24 |
| asda uk | 2 | 27100 | £0.62 |
| supermarket | 1 | 27100 | £3.57 |
| asdas | 8 | 22200 | £0.38 |
| asdas | 9 | 22200 | £0.38 |
| tesco shopping | 5 | 22200 | £1.31 |
| grey goose | 5 | 22200 | £0.36 |
| adsa | 7 | 22200 | £0.42 |
| tesco offers | 3 | 22200 | £2.59 |
| asda travel | 11 | 22200 | £1.27 |
| baileys | 4 | 22200 | £0.71 |
| pampers | 6 | 22200 | £0.95 |
| tesco grocery | 11 | 22200 | £0.33 |
| voss water | 9 | 18100 | £0.17 |
| voss water | 8 | 18100 | £0.17 |
| tahini | 9 | 18100 | £0.56 |
| oral b electric toothbrush | 15 | 18100 | £0.73 |
| weetabix | 6 | 18100 | £0.15 |
| asda birthday cakes | 4 | 18100 | £0.08 |
| asda birthday cakes | 5 | 18100 | £0.08 |
| supermarket comparison | 1 | 18100 | £0.99 |
| veuve clicquot | 15 | 18100 | £0.75 |
| waitrose flowers | 14 | 18100 | £0.45 |
| passata | 8 | 18100 | £0.61 |
| passata | 9 | 18100 | £0.61 |
| berocca | 9 | 18100 | £0.53 |
| aptamil | 8 | 18100 | £1.90 |
| haribo | 19 | 18100 | £0.34 |
| pg tips | 14 | 18100 | £0.48 |
| rice pudding | 19 | 18100 | £0.77 |
| dorset cereals | 6 | 18100 | £0.74 |
| southern comfort | 3 | 18100 | £0.76 |
| asda shopping | 6 | 18100 | £0.30 |
| price comparison | 2 | 18100 | £1.59 |
| bacardi | 4 | 14800 | £0.71 |
| cashback | 17 | 14800 | £1.06 |
| glenfiddich | 7 | 14800 | £0.60 |
| disposable camera | 19 | 14800 | £0.24 |
| compare supermarket | 1 | 14800 | £2.40 |
| pizza express offers | 13 | 14800 | £0.21 |
| waitrose online | 2 | 14800 | £2.92 |
| vegetables | 13 | 14800 | £1.49 |
| lidle | 16 | 14800 | £0.16 |
| nakd bars | 16 | 14800 | £0.70 |
| maltesers | 8 | 14800 | £0.30 |
| maltesers | 7 | 14800 | £0.30 |
| sainsburys online | 8 | 14800 | £0.68 |
| tesco flowers | 17 | 14800 | £0.55 |
| sudafed | 20 | 14800 | £0.40 |
| amaretto | 6 | 14800 | £0.81 |
| kitchen towels | 11 | 14800 | £1.02 |
| tesco online groceries | 5 | 14800 | £0.32 |
| tesco online groceries | 6 | 14800 | £0.32 |
| ben and jerry s | 6 | 14800 | £0.44 |
| tesco.co.uk | 8 | 14800 | £7.53 |
| bargain pages | 12 | 14800 | £0.34 |
| toblerone | 6 | 14800 | £0.20 |
| gripe water | 18 | 14800 | £0.53 |
| sainsbury online | 15 | 14800 | £1.29 |
| asda.co.uk | 8 | 12100 | £1.03 |
| asda.co.uk | 7 | 12100 | £1.03 |
| asda.co.uk | 6 | 12100 | £1.03 |
| tescos groceries | 4 | 12100 | £0.50 |
| aveeno | 9 | 12100 | £0.30 |
| reveal magazine | 8 | 12100 | £0.00 |
| waitrose wine | 20 | 12100 | £0.22 |
| asda cakes | 3 | 12100 | £0.12 |
| morrisons online shopping | 16 | 12100 | £2.15 |
| www.asda | 15 | 12100 | £0.56 |
| bombay sapphire | 4 | 12100 | £0.66 |
| aldi special offers | 10 | 12100 | £0.23 |
| rye bread | 13 | 12100 | £0.37 |
| rye bread | 14 | 12100 | £0.37 |
| tesco birthday cakes | 3 | 12100 | £0.43 |
| tesco birthday cakes | 4 | 12100 | £0.43 |
| asda bedding | 11 | 12100 | £0.59 |
| smirnoff | 4 | 12100 | £0.98 |
| walkers crisps | 8 | 12100 | £0.16 |
| cetirizine hydrochloride | 19 | 12100 | £1.34 |
| cow and gate | 10 | 12100 | £0.97 |
| lindt chocolate | 3 | 12100 | £0.42 |
| glenmorangie | 10 | 12100 | £0.61 |
| tesco pharmacy | 7 | 12100 | £0.80 |
| asda flowers | 8 | 12100 | £1.57 |
| cigarettes | 4 | 12100 | £0.42 |
| voltarol | 15 | 12100 | £0.45 |
| tesco wine offers | 11 | 12100 | £0.16 |
| stella artois | 3 | 12100 | £1.47 |
| oral b | 16 | 12100 | £0.44 |
Using Majestic SEO we can compare domains to identify the SEO activity.
| | www.mysupermarket.co.uk | www.poundland.com | www.poundshop.com |
| ExtBackLinks | 142704 | 4743 | 811 |
| RefDomains | 4431 | 204 | 92 |
| RefIPs | 3146 | 132 | 80 |
| RefSubNets | 2606 | 121 | 79 |
| ExtBackLinksEDU | 395 | 0 | 0 |
| ExtBackLinksGOV | 47 | 22 | 0 |
| RefDomainsEDU | 25 | 0 | 0 |
| RefDomainsGOV | 15 | 4 | 0 |
| CitationFlow | 46 | 29 | 43 |
| TrustFlow | 34 | 25 | 17 |
The power differences can clearly be seen here showing SEO efforts in terms of backlink profiles. Another competitor which is following this platform is the 99p Stores.
99P Stores
Looking at the keywords for larger volumes that the 99p stores website achieves you can see Pound Land and Pound Shop appearing:-
| Keyword | Position | Search Volume | CPC |
| 99p store | 1 | 40500 | £0.07 |
| pound shop | 11 | 18100 | £0.24 |
| 99p stores | 1 | 5400 | £0.08 |
| pound shop online | 12 | 3600 | £0.19 |
| 99p shop | 1 | 2900 | £0.09 |
| 99p | 1 | 2400 | £0.07 |
| 99p store jobs | 1 | 2400 | £0.35 |
| online pound shop | 13 | 2400 | £0.19 |
| pound shop uk | 5 | 1600 | £0.20 |
| pound store | 6 | 1600 | £0.24 |
| pound store | 7 | 1600 | £0.24 |
| poundland store locator | 8 | 1600 | £17.46 |
| the pound shop | 8 | 1600 | £0.18 |
| 99p store opening times | 1 | 1300 | £0.00 |
| 99p store opening times | 2 | 1300 | £0.00 |
| one pound shop | 6 | 1300 | £0.37 |
| pound shops | 6 | 1000 | £0.26 |
| precision screwdriver set | 14 | 1000 | £0.72 |
| pound shops online | 10 | 880 | £0.23 |
An interesting fact to look at here is the cost per click for Google Adwords for the keyword “poundland store locator” which is a steep £17.46. When you Google this keyword you can see the result of SEO work to achieve ranking on page one:-
To understand where these bargain companies fit into overall shopping U.K companies online we are using Alexa ratings information. Alexa gives competitive intelligence and strategic insights providing us with a benchmark in terms of traffic.
| Company | UK Rank | Global Rank |
| tesco.com | 32 | 1076 |
| asda.com | 78 | 2819 |
| sainsburys.co.uk | 119 | 4659 |
| waitrose.com | 380 | 11046 |
| aldi.co.uk | 409 | 14990 |
| mysupermarket.co.uk | 420 | 13155 |
| morrisons.com | 481 | 17892 |
| homebargains.co.uk | 1556 | 52354 |
| Poundland.co.uk | 1817 | 69068 |
| Poundshop.com | 6617 | 139280 |
| 99pstoresltd.com | 16480 | 391000 |
If you have never come across Alexa data before the lower the number the better, i.e. Tesco is the 32nd best website in terms of traffic in the UK and the Adsa is the 78th. Poundland achieves 1817th in terms of traffic which is very good when you compare this to the other 99p stores.
SEO Data
We have continued to investigate the websites looking at the backlink breakdown of follow and no follow links. We have compared the anchor text of the sites and where the links are coming from looking at all the referring domains.
Poundland.co.uk for example has links from Wikipedia and the BBC passing power and the most used anchor text keyword is “poundland” with 663 referring domains and 5,286 links in total.
New Backlinks
Lost Backlinks
We compare the profiles of the websites that link to the Poundland website in order to see how relevant the links are. For example, looking at the website’s that fall under the topic of “shopping” there are 144 external backlinks coming from 136 referring domains.
The SEO profile of the Poundland website is very good in terms of search engine optimisation. We found areas that they lack in but as with everything there is always room for improvement and with SEO it is actually one companies opinion over another and no one can be 100% correct. We have been working in the SEO industry for nearly 10 years and with our knowledge and testing we trust what we find and live by it for ourselves and our clients.
We have not published actual SEO information on this article as it would be wrong to share it in the public domain however further information is available on request.
