Considerable rise in consumer’s searching online for mortgage-related products

London, 13 April, 2010 - UK consumer online searches for terms relating to savings, credit and debit cards, mortgages and loans, increased considerably in January 2010, specifically terms relating to mortgages were the most searched for. This is according to the latest report 'Retail banking sector report - Issue 4', by leading independent specialist search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) consulting and technology firm, Greenlight.

Greenlight's report used industry data to classify 540 of the most popular search terms used by UK consumers to find providers of savings, credit and debit cards, mortgages and loans, online. Cumulatively they delivered a combined total of 5.6 million searches in January 2010, an increase of 1.3 million on October 2009 search volume.

Mortgage-related terms accounted for a 58% share (3.2 million searches) of the 540 most popular search terms which Greenlight identified. They also made up 8 of the top 10 most searched for keywords. According to Greenlight, this is a considerable rise on October's 2.4 million searches for such products and suggests that when it came to looking to change mortgage deals, UK consumers were very active at the beginning of the year.

With 673,000 queries and accounting for 21% of mortgage product-related searches in January, 'Mortgage calculator' was the term most searched for by consumers. 'Mortgages' followed with 11% then 'Buy to let mortgages' and 'Compare mortgages' with 9% of the search volume each.

Greenlight determined the top 60 best positioned, and hence the most visible websites to UK consumers, in the retail banking sector, in natural search* and paid search.**

In natural search, MoneySupermarket was the most visible website overall, followed by Halifax and Fool. There were also some notable movers up the ranks since Greenlight's last report in October 2009. Woolwich for example, increased its share by 13%, ascending Greenlight's league table and leaping from position 39 to five. Likewise MoneyFacts. It attained position 6 in January having previously been 26th. NatWest also made notable strides having previously ranked at position 59, moving to up to 22.

Table 1: Top 5 of the 60 most visible retail banking websites in natural search, UK

Source: Greenlight

In paid search, Moneysupermarket was again the most visible across the board achieving a 70% share of voice. ING Direct followed with 45% then NatWest with 32%.

Through working with retail banking clients, Greenlight's research has found that most retail banking-related search queries are performed at the beginning of the week, from Monday to Wednesday. Interestingly, the report showed that advertisers underestimated the importance of bidding on Monday, yet overestimated the importance of the weekend.

Table 2: Top 5 of the 60 most visible retail banking advertisers in paid search, UK

Source: Greenlight