Published by Sue Johns-Chapman
Published Date 22.04.2025 
Despite being just two years old, Scon is incredibly proud to be named among the biggest and best agencies in the world in this year’s shortlist for the European Search Awards.
Founded by Jonjo Maudsley and Scarlett Sangster, Scon was formed on a simple hypothesis: that when it comes to content marketing, nothing less than the absolute highest quality will do.
Scon’s two nominations alongside our client William Russell – one for Best Use of SEO in Finance (Small), and one for Best Low Budget SEO Campaign – are a testament to this theory. They show that content marketing with a focus on quality can produce incredible results.
Honest to God copy that gets the job done
At Scon, we take a meticulous and detail-oriented approach to copywriting, enshrined in our company motto: “Honest to God copy that gets the job done.”
This means not only writing in an approachable and creative style, but also ensuring a fastidious approach to the quality of our data.
To that end, we find, refine and use only the latest and highest-quality research data from authoritative sources such as the World Health Organization and the United Nations, presenting everything in a journalistic style worthy of any high-value publication.
In this way, we create content that perfectly aligns with Google EEAT criteria. This not only helps our content to rank highly, it ensures our audience is guaranteed to find our content decidedly useful. So useful, in fact, that it directly contributes to revenue – at William Russell, 16% of all conversions now come from the blog.
And it’s not just our customers who agree. Our content freely acquires organic backlinks despite minimal involvement from our team. We’ve even been cited in a peer-reviewed academic paper!
And we have seen consistently high citations from AI search too. As our focus shifts to this emerging category, our content is perfectly poised to capitalise on the ever-increasing share of traffic from AI.
By creating content from a quality-first point of view, we have not only secured world-class rankings, we’ve positioned our client for future success. It’s no coincidence our client’s organic traffic soared after the Helpful Content Update in 2024 – with sitewide clicks increasing 262% between March and September of that year – nor is it any coincidence our rankings have stayed consistently high since.
To put it simply: quality content drives results, again and again and again.
The best expat content hub in the world
Our mission working alongside William Russell is to build the go-to destination for expatriates, digital nomads and retirees around the world seeking help and advice when it comes to making the most of their lifestyles abroad.
To that end, we have made it our ambition to build nothing less than the best expat content hub in the world, covering a wide variety of themes and topics, with regular news and updates from across the globe.
This aspirational goal sets the standard by which we formulate our ideas, strategise our content and measure our results. When it comes to creating each new piece of content, we ask ourselves: is this the best in the world?
William Russell is a truly global business, providing international health insurance, life insurance and income protection to members in over 160 countries. Their audience is comprised of wealthy jet-setters who see insurance as much a lifestyle choice as a necessity.
That’s why our blog positions our insurance products alongside lifestyle features, seamlessly blending our policies into the world of expat living.
And with a commitment to creating nothing but the highest-quality content that suits our audience’s needs and interests, we have not only built a source through which 92% of all organic traffic flows – we have created a destination that keeps members coming back.
Going to the ends of the Earth for ideas
So, how do we ensure we continue to build this world-class expat content?
We combine a number of different research methods to ensure we’re always on top of the latest trends. And when it comes to creating content for an audience spread across the planet, we quite literally go to the ends of the Earth for ideas.
We take social listening seriously by staying active across many expat and digital nomad-focused hashtags and subreddits. We conduct huge tranches of keyword analysis and stay informed of emerging themes through Google Trends. We’re regular readers of everything from niche lifestyle blogs to household-name travel magazines. We reach out to expats and digital nomads around the world to glean their ideas and understand their points of view. Heck, we even tried living abroad ourselves, to truly put ourselves in our readers’ shoes!
All of this comes together in the form of a never-ending flow of ideas, helping us to produce no less than five pieces of expert content per month. Whether it’s destination guides to up-and-coming expat hotspots, insights into managing your finances overseas, or help and advice on staying healthy in a foreign country, we create the kind of content that both starts and grows expat conversations worldwide.
By cottoning on to emerging trends, we’ve managed to seize the top spots for hundreds of high-value keywords. Now, when expats search for topics close to their heart, they are almost guaranteed to see William Russell in their SERPs – in fact, in 2024, we grew impressions 88% from 13.8 million to 26 million.
Content marketing that gets results
We’re so proud to be nominated in this year’s European Search Results. As a new agency, seeing our achievements shortlisted alongside global heavyweights gives us the belief that our mantra is making an impact.
This nomination proves that even in 2025, with all the uncertainty around the world of search, high-quality content marketing still gets results.
And those results speak for themselves. In 2024, Scon and William Russell saw a 90% increase in clicks to blog content, while the average position for all keywords increased from 17.2 to 15.3.
In the US, we saw a 29% increase in total keywords, while in the UK it was 11%. Also in the US, we saw a 51% increase in our share of keywords in the top 3 positions; in the UK, an 18% increase.
Congratulations to everyone nominated in this year’s European Search Awards. We can’t wait to meet many of you in Krakow later this year. And until then, if you’d like to know more about us and what we do, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
