Pomegranate vs. Sedulo – Who Is The Best Marketer In Finance?

Since launching the Embryo Index, we’ve taken an in-depth look at a range of companies and sectors, including the Property industry, to see which major Manchester businesses come out on top. This time, it’s the turn of the Finance industry, and we’ll be taking a look at Pomegranate and Sedulo. Before we start comparing these companies, it’s worth mentioning that Pomegranate and Sedulo are both in the Embryo Index top 10 for the Finance industry, so are both doing pretty well already! However, there’s always room for improvement, and by comparing the two, we can see where each of their strengths and weaknesses lie, and how they can boost their presence online and improve their business. 

Starting off with some digital metrics, the Embryo Index’s Web Authority Score refers to how well a company’s website performs on a wide variety of SEO-related metrics. These include page speed and on-page SEO techniques, the number and quality of a site’s backlinks, and the volume and quality of a site’s content, which all indicate an active, well maintained and successful website. 

As we can see, both companies are pretty well matched, though Sedulo just has the edge with a score of 32 to Pomegranate’s 29. These scores could be improved by taking a good look at the current SEO and content strategies and identifying the areas that these companies can each improve on.

The Inbound Links Score is intrinsically linked to the web authority score, and looks specifically at each organisation’s backlink profile. Backlinks are links from other websites that point to yours, which gives search engines valuable information about what your site and organisation does, and how trustworthy you are, making high-quality backlinks very important to creating a successful SEO strategy. In this case, both companies have quite poor inbound links scores – Sedulo with 12 and Pomegranate with 5. By improving these scores, they could both also lift their web authority scores considerably.

The inbound links score is also heavily impacted by the Establishment Score, which measures the number of very high quality backlinks a site has, from establishments such as government or university websites. These are particularly high quality links as the editorial standards on these sites are generally very high, and the work it takes to get a link from organisations like these is usually considerable.

For two of the major players in the local industry, these scores, or lack thereof, are quite surprising. With both organisations having a score of zero, we can see that neither have any backlinks from highly regarded, establishment sites. This does show an area of great potential for both companies though, and raising their establishment scores will also impact on their inbound links scores and web authority scores, and move them up the search engine rankings pages.

The Keyword Reach Score tells us how many keywords and phrases each website ranks for on search engines such as Google and Bing. It also tells us about how easy their site is to find using search engines and how likely a user is to find them over their competitors when searching for products or services online. Again, both organisations have pretty low keyword reach scores, but Sedulo is doing considerably better, with a score of 15.8 to Pomegranate’s 3. Both companies should take a look over their targeting and keyword strategies to identify gaps and help make them a stronger presence in the search engine rankings.

The Web Traffic score is calculated using a variety of third party metrics to accurately estimate the number of users a website has.

It is particularly interesting to note, that while Sedulo have the higher web traffic score, this is much lower than their keyword reach score (15.8). Our research has found that companies with considerably lower web traffic scores than keyword reach scores often have issues with the content on their site, as users can find their site, but don’t stay on it. This can tell us that the content or design of the website isn’t engaging, or is targeted towards the wrong audience, making users click off very soon after reaching the site. Despite their lower score, Pomegranate don’t have these issues.

Social Media is important for any business, not just as a communication tool or a way to build their customer base, but also as an indicator to search engines. Search engines analyse and take into account the different social media platforms a company uses, the size of their following and their levels of engagement. Pomegranate, with a score of 13, takes this metric, compared to Sedulo’s score of 10. Both scores could do with improvement, by being more active and engaged on social media.

The Customer Review Score is where Sedulo comes into their own. By taking data from a variety of consumer review platforms, including Trustpilot, Feefo, eKomi, and Google Reviews, we can create a score that reflects the number and quality of each company’s customer reviews. While Pomegranate’s 67.5 leaves room for improvement, it is a respectable score. However, with a maxed out score of 100, Sedulo shows they are incredibly highly regarded by their customers online, which boosts their overall score massively.The Embryo Index Press Score examines the press coverage of every company in the index. The frequency of appearances in the press, and being mentioned positively by local publications can be a huge boost to a business. Both companies could do with improving their press score, but Sedulo overshadows the competition when it comes to the local press, with a score of 45 to Pomegranate’s 7.5. This score can be improved by running good PR campaigns, writing press releases and building good relationships with local publications to be mentioned more frequently and favourably.

The On The Street Score is a measurement of what our Embryo Index companies do offline. From charity work to networking, events, sponsorships and everything in between, if it’s happening in the ‘real world’, it’s a part of the on the street score.With the higher on the street score, Sedulo wins this metric, with 46.67 points to Pomegranate’s 20.

This leads us to the final Embryo Index scores – and the winner is Sedulo, with a score of 1058.61 which is also the highest score in the Finance sector! Pomegranate are clocking in with a very respectable 492.59, putting them at number six in their sector. However, with companies in other industries reaching well over one or even two thousand points, there’s plenty of room for improving visibility for both organisations.

If you’d like to find out how to improve your business’ score, want to know more about the Embryo Index or want to make sure your company is listed on Manchester’s Visibility Index, contact Embryo on 0161 327 2635.