Published by Sue Johns-Chapman
Published Date 05.01.2026 
Wildcat Digital celebrate their win at the UK Search Awards.
We’re pleased to share that Wildcat Digital has won Best Use of Search – Third Sector / Not-For-Profit at the UK Search Awards, for our SEO campaign with Men’s Minds Matter.
The award recognises search campaigns that deliver meaningful results for non-profit organisations, often within tight financial and operational constraints. This was a small-budget SEO campaign delivered for a Community Interest Company operating in a highly competitive and sensitive space – mental health and suicide prevention.
About Wildcat Digital
Wildcat Digital is a specialist SEO agency working with organisations across commercial and non-profit sectors. As a small agency, our focus is on practical, outcome-led search strategies that prioritise long-term visibility and return on investment.
The Client: Men’s Minds Matter
Men’s Minds Matter (MMM) is a UK-based Community Interest Company focused on suicide intervention and prevention for men. The organisation delivers specialist, life-saving support and relies entirely on fundraising to continue its work.
When the campaign began in May 2024, MMM faced several challenges common to third-sector organisations:
- A small, mostly part-time internal team
- A limited ongoing SEO budget
- Strong competition from large, established mental health charities
- A website that contained high-quality expertise, but lacked SEO, UX, and technical foundations
The objective was to increase visibility, support fundraising growth, and ensure that men in crisis – and those supporting them – could find MMM easily through search.
Campaign Objectives and Constraints
Men’s Minds Matter set a clear goal for their 2025 performance:
Increase fundraising from £75,000 in 2024 to £200,000 in 2025, with organic search contributing directly to this growth.
Supporting objectives included:
- MMM’s overarching goal was to increase fundraising from £75k in 2024 to £150K in 2025, with them hoping their relatively small investment in search visibility would be a key driver in achieving this
- In order to reach more people for both their fundraising and service delivery, they needed to rank in the top 3 positions for any keywords relating to men’s mental health charity. A crowded space with national competitors.
- When beginning work (May 2024), the website was generating fewer than 800 clicks through Google Search Console and 1.4K organic traffic (GA4). We set about to double these metrics within the first 12 months to put them in a good position to push on further.
- With a lean budget, Digital PR would be a secondary ad hoc focus when opportunities arose, but with large competitors and high importance on EEAT in their organic sphere, we needed to boost their Domain Authority. Starting at 25DA (SemRush), we aimed to get this over 30 with high-value backlinks.
Strategy and Implementation
Targeting High-Intent Search Demand
The strategy focused on charity and support-related keywords within men’s mental health. These searches often indicate either a willingness to donate or an urgent need for help, making them critical to both fundraising and service delivery.
As Men’s Minds Matter is a CIC rather than a registered charity, we created content clearly explaining the distinction. This allowed the site to rank transparently for charity-related terms without misrepresentation, while still meeting user intent.
Content Optimisation for Accessibility
Many of MMM’s existing resources were written by a clinical psychologist and contained highly technical language. While authoritative, this content was not always digestible to people in distress.
SEO-led content optimisation focused on:
- Simplifying language while retaining clinical accuracy
- Improving structure and readability
- Making support pathways clearer across the site
New long-tail content was also created to address specific search needs and scenarios.
Technical SEO and Usability Improvements
Early in the campaign, several foundational issues were addressed:
- Missing and inconsistent heading structures
- Poor navigation and internal linking
- A hosting environment that caused frequent downtime
Improving usability and site stability was particularly important given the vulnerability of the target audience and had an immediate impact on engagement and performance.
Digital PR and Authority Building
With a limited budget, Digital PR activity was used selectively. Rather than generic charity campaigns, we focused on regional and personal fundraising stories, which helped secure relevant, high-authority coverage and follow links from sites such as MSN.
This approach contributed to steady improvements in domain authority and overall visibility, despite minimal PR spend.
Results
The campaign exceeded all primary targets:
- £302,333 raised by July 2025, surpassing the £150,000 target well ahead of schedule
- £382,333 raised when including trusts and grants
- Organic users increased from 1.4k to 4.2k per month
- Google Search Console clicks grew from 800 to 2.85k per month
- Top-three keyword rankings increased from 15 to 101
- Number one ranking achieved for “men’s mental health charity”
- Domain Authority increased from 22 to 33, supported by multiple high-authority backlinks
These outcomes directly supported both fundraising growth and access to critical mental health support.
What the Award Means
“I’m really proud to have won this award. It’s great recognition for a campaign and client that I’m genuinely passionate about. Seeing organic search contribute so directly to their fundraising and visibility makes this a particularly rewarding project to have managed.”
– Jamie Stowe, Senior SEO Account Manager, Wildcat Digital
For Wildcat Digital, winning Best Use of Search – Third Sector / Not-For-Profit reinforces the value of strategic, ethical SEO in sectors where trust and impact matter as much as performance.“Entering the UK Search Awards gave us the opportunity to demonstrate that small-budget campaigns can still deliver exceptional outcomes, particularly in the third sector.”
– Wildcat Digital
