Period Measured
March 2024 – February 2025
Data Sources
Google Analytics / GA, Google Search Console, SEMrush
Website
Designed & Built by Reach
Overview
Mid & North East Essex Mind supports people across the region with mental health services, urgent help, counselling, resources and community programmes.
The website already played an important role in helping users find support, but there was a gap in the journey. When people needed more detailed mental health information, they were often being sent away to the national Mind website.
That was useful, but it meant the local site was acting more like a signpost than a destination. Users had to leave the MNEE Mind website to get fuller answers, and the charity had limited visibility over what people were engaging with once they left.
Reach identified an opportunity to bring more of that support journey onto the MNEE Mind website.
By creating a structured Resource Hub, improving navigation and optimising resource content, MNEE Mind could provide clearer information directly, improve organic visibility and make engagement easier to measure.
Key Stats
660k
Google Search impressions
374%
increase in Google Search Clicks
5,569
users negage through the Resource Hub
26.3K
Google Search Clicks
Upskilled M&NEE Mind Internal Marketing team in SEO fundamentals.
The challenge
MNEE Mind had valuable mental health information on its website, but many of the detailed answers users needed were being provided through links to national Mind resources.
For users, this created friction. Someone looking for help could start their journey on the local site, then be moved elsewhere to understand their condition, symptoms or support options.
For MNEE Mind, it also created a measurement gap. If users left the website to read detailed guidance elsewhere, it became harder to understand which topics mattered most, what people needed, and how resource engagement connected to wider actions such as counselling, support groups, donations, training, events or volunteering.
At the same time, the website structure had become difficult to navigate. User feedback highlighted that key pages appeared in multiple dropdowns and the menu was overcrowded, making it harder for people to find information quickly. The 2025 proposal also identified navigation and user journey optimisation as a priority, with the aim of helping users find information more quickly and efficiently. :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}
The challenge was not simply to increase traffic. It was to make the website more useful at the point people needed help.
Our approach
Our approach was to turn MNEE Mind’s website into a more useful support destination in its own right.
Rather than sending users away for detailed answers, we recommended building a dedicated Resource Hub: a structured area of the website where people could find practical, accessible information without leaving the MNEE Mind site.
This gave the work three clear objectives:
- Improve the user journey by making support information easier to find.
- Strengthen organic visibility by creating useful, intent-led content around mental health topics people were already searching for.
- Make engagement measurable by keeping more resource journeys on the MNEE Mind website.
The wider strategy combined UX, technical SEO, on-page optimisation, content development and reporting improvements. The 2025 retained services proposal also set out priorities around content strategy, technical SEO, keyword and competitor analysis, conversion tracking, and improving website usability through better navigation.
What we implemented
Resource Hub built as a practical support destination
Previously, many users looking for detailed mental health information would have been directed away from MNEE Mind’s website. The Resource Hub changed that by giving users a place to access practical information, guidance and next steps directly through the local charity’s own website.
This was not content for content’s sake. It was designed around real user needs, with clear pathways, internal links and support journeys that helped visitors choose what to engage with and where to go next.
The results showed the value of that shift. The Resource Hub drove 938 users to the website and engaged 5,569 users. The performance summary explicitly noted that, previously, this type of journey would have resulted in users being sent away from the website.
Resource Hub content page built to deliver real advice in Mind’s tone, with clear pathways to further support. Breadcrumbs, quick links and related content make it easy for users to navigate and take the next step.
Navigation and journey improvements to reduce friction
We recommended changes that reduced clutter and made the main support journeys easier to understand and scale over time:
- Counselling: consolidate separate counselling pages into a single clearer overview page, reducing duplication and confusion.
- Support groups: replace multiple individual support group menu items with one Support Groups landing page that adds context and scales as new groups are added.
- Get Support: simplify navigation around four key routes (Help for Adults, Help for Young People, Urgent Help, Counselling) so users can make decisions quickly and confidently.
This work improved usability for people seeking help, while also creating a structure that’s easier for search engines to crawl, interpret and rank.
Performance tracking and reporting (through Consent Mode v2 changes)
We introduced improved engagement and conversion tracking so MNEM could measure outcomes more accurately and communicate website value with confidence.
A big part of this was navigating changes driven by consent and privacy requirements (including Consent Mode updates), and helping the MNEM team understand what that transition means for GA4 data, attribution and reporting. We adjusted custom reporting to reflect the new measurement reality so performance trends remained meaningful and usable.
Day-to-day delivery as an extension of the marketing team
Alongside implementation, we worked closely with the MNEM team to keep progress moving week to week — making quick adjustments, advising on priorities, and helping shape new initiatives so they could be introduced cleanly (without creating navigation sprawl or diluting SEO relevance).
We also supported capability-building through training sessions and practical guidance, helping the team:
- create their own content with confidence (and in line with Mind’s brand),
- understand how to structure and publish content for SEO,
- and implement improvements in a way that supports both users and organic growth.
Results
Stronger organic performance, and a clearer upward trend
Across the period, MNEM saw a step-change in organic growth. Organic traffic increased by 28.6%, bringing 11,289 users to the site.
At the same time, Google Search clicks increased by 374%, with Search Console data showing a clear upward trend throughout the year.
It’s also worth noting that these numbers are likely conservative; Consent Mode restricts tracking to users who accept cookies, so real performance is likely higher than reported.
Organic growth over time (Google Search Console): 26.3K clicks and 660K impressions, with a clear upward trend across the reporting period.
Increased brand demand and awareness
Brand-related searches (e.g. “mid and north east essex mind”, “mind essex”, “mind colchester”) showed major growth in impressions and clicks, indicating rising awareness.
The Resource Hub kept support journeys on-site
The Resource Hub became a tangible engagement driver — bringing 938 users to the site and engaging 5,569 users.
Importantly, this represented a strategic shift: where users previously would have been sent away from the local site, the Resource Hub helped MNEM act as a genuinely helpful destination in its own right.
Q4 momentum, even with Ads stopped
Between 1 Oct and 31 Dec 2025, there were 6,526 clicks from Google, up 9.7% vs the previous quarter and 2.5% year-on-year, despite Google Ads being paused at the end of October.
What this meant for MNEE Mind
The Resource Hub helped the charity move from signposting users elsewhere to supporting more journeys directly on its own website. That made the site more useful for people looking for help, while giving MNEE Mind a clearer view of which topics and journeys were creating engagement.
The work also created a stronger foundation for long-term growth. Resource content could now be expanded, optimised and measured over time, while improved navigation made it easier for users and search engines to understand the structure of the site.
In a search landscape shaped by AI Overviews, changing user behaviour and privacy-led tracking limitations, this mattered. MNEE Mind did not just need more traffic. It needed a website that could help people, capture demand and measure meaningful engagement more reliably.
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