Manchester’s Property Giants – Who Comes Out On Top?

The Embryo Index is a list taking a look at businesses across Greater Manchester to see who has the best presence in the city, both digitally and in the real world. Today, we’ll be examining Bruntwood and Urban Splash, and comparing and contrasting how they perform within the index. While they’re two very different companies, as some of the biggest hitters in the local property industry, seeing how they match up can tell us a lot about the sector as a whole, across Greater Manchester. Bruntwood and Urban Splash are fairly well matched across the index’s metrics, with less than a 450 point difference between their overall scores. 

Both Bruntwood and Urban Splash have excellent Press Scores, with both gaining a 100 point press score. This shows that both companies are acknowledged regularly and positively in the local press and media, and really understand the power this can have for their business and reputation in the area.

When it comes to Bruntwood and Urban Splash’s Customer Review Scores, Urban Splash are the clear winners. The reputation score takes data from a variety of review platforms including Trustpilot and Google Reviews, and combines them into one score. 

Bruntwood currently have a reputation score of zero, showing that there aren’t any trustworthy reviews for the Embryo Index to rank, which is surprising for such a large and reputable organisation. Urban Splash have a reputation score of 52.5, which is considerably higher, but is also not an outstanding score. On this metric, both organisations should aim to improve significantly.

Next up in the Embryo Index is the Web Authority Score, which is a good indicator of an effective and well maintained website. It takes into account the number and quality of backlinks to a website, the page speed and other on-page SEO metrics, as well as the volume and quality of the website’s content. The battle for this metric is very close, but Bruntwood just takes it, with a score of 64 and high-quality links from Manchester Pride, bluedot, and Innovation Birmingham. Urban Splash has a respectable score of 61, showing that search engines see and trust both of these websites, and that depending on the number and types of links these sites get in the future, as well as when they get them, the rankings could easily change.

The Keyword Reach Score estimates the number of keywords and keyphrases that each website ranks for in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). As far as our two companies in this post go, Urban Splash win this metric with a score of 86.5, to Bruntwood’s 70.9. This shows that Urban Splash probably target more keywords and phrases, and that they rank better for them too.

The Embryo Index’s Web Traffic Score is a similar type of metric, and estimates the number of visitors to a site, using a combination of third party metrics. Again, this is a metric for which the sites are very closely matched – Bruntwood with 78.8 and Urban Splash with 75.8. However, it’s worth mentioning that often, sites with a lower web traffic score than keyword reach score (like Urban Splash) have these scores because the content on their site isn’t particularly relevant or engaging to their users.

The Inbound Links Score is very closely related to the web authority score, as they both rely heavily on the number and quality of backlinks to a site. Companies with a low inbound links score are likely to have a lower web authority score, and those with a high inbound links score are well on their way to improving their web authority score. Having high-quality links to a site helps tell search engines your site is reliable, trustworthy and authoritative in its field, which prompts them to show you higher up on the rankings.

Both Bruntwood and Urban Splash have an inbound link score of 78, which is a very good score, and also shows us why the web authority scores are so similar. By examining this data, we can see that Bruntwood probably have marginally better on-page SEO, site speed and website content than Urban Splash.

Also very important when it comes to analysing the backlink profile of the sites in the Embryo Index is the Establishment Score, which measures the number of links from high-quality, genuine links a site has. These links often come from .ac or .gov domains, as there are generally stringent criteria and high editorial standards on these kinds of sites, making these links particularly difficult to obtain and of great value to companies.

Interestingly, Urban Splash has a significantly higher establishment score, which tells us that Bruntwood’s inbound links score is probably based on a high volume of links, while Urban Splash rely on high-quality links to create their strong backlink profiles.

Google and other search engines hold the Social Media Score of a site in high regard, and it impacts on how well they see and understand businesses online. The different social platforms companies use, their audience size and level of audience engagement are all taken into account when calculating a company’s social media score. Both Bruntwood and Urban Splash have good social media scores, but Urban Splash take the lead with a score of 61 to Bruntwood’s 42.

Our On The Street Score goes offline to evaluate the presence of the Embryo Index companies in the real world. This takes into account things like advertising, sponsorships, thought leadership, outreach, networking, events and charity work. Bruntwood have the higher on the street score, with an excellent 53.33, compared to Urban Splash’s 33.33. Urban Splash’s score is boosted by the over 400 awards they have won as a company, as well as the exhibition they produced in partnership with RIBA to celebrate their 25th birthday, and their enthusiasm and passion for urban regeneration. 

Bruntwood has one of the highest on the street scores in the entire Embryo Index, and for good reason! Bruntwood pledges a minimum of 10% of its yearly profits to charity every year, and also has a variety of high profile partnerships with significant educational, cultural and charitable organisations, including Manchester Pride, TEDx, the Manchester International Festival, and the Manchester School of Art, as well as the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, which has granted over £250,000 since 2005. They are also vocal about their dedication to driving science, industry and innovation across the country. 

With both companies closely matched, the total Embryo Index scores were close too, with less than 450 points between them. However, in the end, Bruntwood just has the edge, with a total score of 1979.74, compared to Urban Splash’s 1550.71 However, these are both in the top ten scores from the entire Embryo Index, and they are the top two organisations in the property sector, so we can see both organisations have a very good digital profile.

If you’re interested in the Embryo Index, and want to find out more about what we do, what the index is, and how to get your company on the index, contact Embryo today.