Independent SEO Consultancy
A UK charity supporting people with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, a free Ad Grants account barely working, and no way of telling what any of it was achieving. The job was to build the measurement first, then fix what it showed. Done as a volunteer, to the same standard as any paid client.
Burning Nights CRPS Support is a UK charity for people living with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, a chronic pain condition that is often misdiagnosed and poorly understood. It provides information, community and advocacy for patients, families and healthcare professionals.
I started as a volunteer in July 2025, shortly after the charity ended its relationship with its previous SEO company. There was a gap in digital capability and very little budget to fill it.
Everything looked present on paper. In practice, almost none of it was working, and nobody could tell, because there was no reliable measurement to say so.
I started with measurement, because it was impossible to judge any other change without it.
| Measure | Before | After | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Active, correctly set up campaigns | Most not serving | 13 live, from 18 audited | Google Ads |
| Conversion actions in GA4 and Google Ads | 0 | 6 | GA4, Google Ads |
| Spoon Theory: clicks | 74 | 114 (+54%) | Search Console, last 28 days vs same period 2025, query "spoon theory" |
| Spoon Theory: impressions | 19.6k | 64.8k (+230%) | Search Console, same filter |
| Spoon Theory: position | 5.6 | 4.7 | Search Console, same filter |
| Average position | 12.2 | 6.6 | Search Console, as reported to trustees in May 2026 |
| Impressions | Previous period | 2.7M, up 32% | Search Console, as reported to trustees in May 2026 |
| Organic engaged sessions | 55,187 (2024) | 70,860 (2025), +28.4% | GA4, calendar years |
| All engaged sessions | 98,155 (2024) | 103,911 (2025), +5.9% | GA4, calendar years |
Each figure shows where it comes from. Search Console and GA4 count different things, so I report them separately.
The Spoon Theory article shows the pattern on informational pages. Impressions more than tripled and clicks rose 54%, but click-through rate on the query fell from 0.4% to 0.2%, because Google's AI answers take some of the clicks. Visibility is growing faster than visits, which is why I report them separately.
Organic engaged sessions grew nearly five times faster than total traffic in 2025, which means more people finding the charity through search specifically. That year includes only the first half of my involvement and comes before the Ad Grants and tracking rebuild, so it reflects the SEO and content work, not those changes. For informational pages, AI Overviews answer questions before anyone clicks, so I track visibility, clicks and conversions as three separate things and say which source each comes from.
Ad Grants spend is only part of the picture, but it shows how the account has behaved since the rebuild. It fell through the summer as wasted spend was removed, then rose as the rebuilt campaigns scaled. Even in October it was using about 17% of the $10,000 monthly allowance, so there is room to grow where campaigns convert.
| Month (2026) | Cost | Clicks | Impressions | Avg CPC |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May | $1,249 | — | — | — |
| June | $960 | — | — | — |
| July | $880 | 487 | 9,223 | $1.81 |
| August | $717 | 326 | 4,830 | $2.20 |
| September | $1,366 | 493 | 8,057 | $2.77 |
| October | $1,654 | 419 | 6,271 | $3.95 |
Google Ads, enabled campaigns. May and June click data not yet added.
The point of the first stage shows up here. Before this work, none of these outcomes could be attributed to anything. Spend and effort can now be judged against real results, which is what the charity's 2026–2029 strategy needed.
None of this was invoiced. It was volunteer work, done to the same standard as anything charged for, because a charity supporting people with a difficult, often misunderstood chronic pain condition deserves infrastructure that works, not just infrastructure that exists.
A GA4 funnel exploration of the membership journey, now that there is clean data: when I analysed it in May 2026, 71% of visitors to the membership landing page dropped off before the benefits page, so that is where the next gains are likely to be. Separately, a gap I found on clinical guidance, a topic with about 9,370 monthly searches that the charity doesn't yet cover, is the first content priority. The charity was one of only two UK CRPS charities consulted on the 2018 national guidelines, a credential its content hasn't used.
"Alex joined Burning Nights CRPS Support at a particularly difficult time for us, shortly after we had ended our relationship with our previous SEO company. As a small charity, losing that support left us with a significant gap, and we were unsure what we would realistically be able to achieve with our limited resources.
Over the last year, Alex has been simply fantastic. The level of expertise, time and commitment he has given us as a volunteer has been exceptional, and we have been amazed by the results he has achieved. He hasn't just looked at individual keywords or rankings; he has taken the time to understand our charity, our audiences and what we are trying to achieve, before tackling everything from the structure and content of our website to accessibility, analytics and our Google Ad Grant.
What has impressed me most is his thoroughness. He has identified issues we didn't even know existed, explained them in a way we can understand, and then worked methodically to put them right. We now have far better insight into how our website is performing and, most importantly, a stronger online presence that helps more people living with CRPS, their families and professionals find the information and support they need.
For a small national charity, having someone with Alex's knowledge and skill volunteer their time is incredibly valuable. He has made a genuine and lasting difference to Burning Nights CRPS Support, and I cannot thank him enough."
— Victoria Abbott-Fleming MBE, Founder & Chair of Trustees, Burning Nights CRPS Support
