While Chelsea Football Club currently lead the English Premier League, the Manchester United website is winning when it comes to visibility in Google UK searches, according to new research.

The two clubs’ positions are reversed again when it comes to social media, with the London club leading the way thanks in part to more people sharing links to the Chelsea on the Google+ social network.

The findings come from a study looking at the online visibility of the 20 Premier League teams by search and social analytics firm Searchmetrics.

When it comes to the web, in many ways Premier League football clubs act like media businesses in the way they try to attract visitors and fans to their official sites where they can engage with them and potentially sell tickets, hospitality packages and merchandise.

In terms of visibility on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest) is measured on how often content from a web site  is shared, liked, tweeted etc on social sites.

The company’s findings show that Chelsea are currently in the lead in terms of Social Visibility, with a score of  50,363,039, compared to Man Utd’s 32,605,712. Much of Chelsea’s lead is down to creating a strong presence on the Google+ social network, which is responsible for 68 per cent of Chelsea’s social shares. In contrast nearly 99% of Man United’s social visibility comes from Facebook shares and likes.

Wigan Athletic, Stoke City and West Bromwich Albion occupy the social visibility relegation places at the bottom of the table.

According to Marcus Tober, founder and CTO of Searchmetrics says what’s interesting is how some clubs, such as Chelsea and Liverpool have embraced newer networks such as Google+.

He says this not only spreads their content further, but many SEO specialists believe Google+ activity plays a role in determining Google’s search engine rankings making it some kind of underused secret weapon linking social and search.

Social Visibility of English Premier League Football Club Web Sites

In terms of search the study found that Man United’s www.manutd.com web site beats all its rivals with a score of 44,954.  Arsenal are runners up with 42,784, followed by Liverpool, who belie their poor league form with a strong score of 32,176. Chelsea are only fourth (30,547) with current Premier League champions, Manchester City, sixth with an SEO Visibility of just 14,974.

Queens Park Rangers’ (QPR’s) woeful start to the football season is mirrored online, as they currently prop up the Premier League in terms of visibility in Google searches as well as results on the pitch. QPR and West Bromwich Albion both scored less than 1,000 on SEO visibility.

Tober says the Premiership clubs are increasingly competing with newspaper publishers, broadcasters and online media, making visibility in search engines and social media a vital part of their online marketing.

“Some clubs are doing really well with their search engine optimisation (SEO) and social networking strategies, but others are falling behind. This could potentially affect revenues and who knows – possibly even their ability to bring in money for players and hence performance on the pitch.”

SEO Visibility of English Premier League Football Club Web Sites

¹League Position correct 22 October 2012

About the research

Searchmetrics analysed data on the search and social visibility of the 20 UK Premier League football club web sites during w/c 15 October 2012.