It’s the end of the year and that means a few things for us as marketers. We get to write wrap ups like this. Everyone is asking for our 2025 marketing predictions and we will be working with a large glass of Baileys and cake on our desks. Nothing to see here! So, what were our highlights (and lowlights) of 2024? Here’s 2024 unwrapped.
January – March
The January to March period is always busy for us as we are focused on implementing content strategies for our new and existing clients. With a fast shifting financial services and digital landscape and renewed client objectives, we like to refresh strategies every year.
We were also happy to media partner with a number of key industry events including iFX EXPO Dubai in January and Finovate Europe in London. We’re often invited to media partner events and it’s a great way for us to keep up with latest trends, to grow our networks and be part of the global conversations around finance.
Contentworks was invited to comment on industry topics from global media and publications. We started with 7 Fintech Trends in 2024 published in Market Watch, and went on to look at the Dark Side of SMS for Crypto in Finance Magnates. FX News Group (FNG) reached out to our team a number of times and in Q1 we authored a piece on how Google treats AI content.
April – June
While Q1 seemed like business as normal, Q2 slammed into us like an eggnog shot (anyone still drinking eggnog?) As content marketers we’ve always focused on building a strong organic following for our brand. You will find us ranking at the top of organic searches for our industry. But in April, something went mysteriously wrong. And we had no idea what it was! Our search traffic dropped 64% in the week of April 14, so our SEO team started investigating. The likely culprit was the Google core algorithm update released in March 2024 and rolled out till April 19. It was one the most complex and time-consuming roll outs. Hundreds of sites were deindexed so we weren’t alone.
We were not able to identify a specific issue, but we did do some spring cleaning. We tidied up 404 errors from external links, improved site speed and site navigation, fixed redirect chains and improved mobile optimisation. We also added Google Ads to our Services page. We are excited to be offering expert financial services PPC in collaboration with Growth-onomics, our advertising partners.
And there’s a learning lesson for us all here. SEO is not a one-time, or even annual activity. It should be on your monthly to do list!
Along with putting out fires, it was business as usual. We attended Virtual Vision Forex at The Four Seasons hotel in Limassol. And as part of keeping up with latest financial regulations, we attended CySEC’s Sandbox session.
In May we celebrated our 7th birthday for the agency. Yes, there was gin, and yes there was cake.
The second quarter also saw us invited to present at a number of expos and events including The Reflect Festival in May. Here Niki was pleased to moderate 3 diverse panels on fintech, blockchain and sustainable cities.
In June, Niki was on the stage again, at the iFX EXPO International in Cyprus, speaking on the main marketing panel. Charlotte was busy as a guest author for a number of social media marketing sites such as Agorapulse. You can check out her content there.
July – September
Over the summer we created an industry Guide to Emerging Markets. Many of our clients were interested in marketing to LATAM and Africa, and we wanted to share our research into the state of play for brokers in these markets. We also continued our key event partnerships in Q3 and supported iFX EXPO Asia in Thailand and FMLS:24 in London.
October – December
As soon as we hit October, we were all eyes on the US Election as we cover key market moving events for many forex brands. We actually had blogs and social media posts prepared for either a Harris or a Trump win. That’s just how we roll to be the first to post for our clients. With the Trump win, came a bullish run on cryptos so Niki was over at FX News Group with some hot BTC analysis.
We also jingled and mingled our way into the holiday season with all these events:
And we’re gearing up for 2025 finance events as media partners and attendees. If you have a finance event you want us to cover, get in contact with our team. And some great news to round off our wrap up. We have expanded our financial content writing team, and we are now exceeding our web traffic from the pre April apocalypse (Googlepocalypse?) and are again ranking in the top 3 for financial services marketing keywords. YAY!
So that’s a wrap from us here at Contentworks Agency. We want to thank our clients, partners, employees and media sites for making 2024 another great year for our agency. Now fill up that glass, have another mince pie and enjoy a very merry Christmas!