The Company: Walden Wise

Walden Wise is a Southern Maryland nonprofit that turns emotional health research into free, practical tools for parents, teachers, grandparents, and other caring adults. It is part of Walden Sierra, a behavioral health organization led by Dr. Kathleen O’Brien. Our nonprofit Google Ads campaign and SEO work began when the team received a $10,000 Google grant and wanted every dollar to reach the right adults.

Researchers the organization calls CoCreators build the resources, including Dr. Mitch Prinstein of UNC Chapel Hill. The library includes practice guides, conversation starters for kids, Big Emotion Cards, and the Emotion Navigator.

Everything is free, with no paywall and no email gate. That shaped every decision we made.

The Challenge: A Free Library Almost Nobody Could Find

Christina Turner came to Enlimited with a library of expert-built resources and a website on Squarespace that drew about 33 organic clicks a month. The average Google position across the site sat at 9.9, the bottom of page one. Searches like “conversation starters for kids” went to listicle sites while the science-informed version sat unseen.

The grant added a clock. Walden Wise had $10,000 in Google ad credit, a dormant Google Ads account, no keyword list, no landing pages, and no conversion tracking. Spending a grant without tracking means spending blind.

Three problems stacked up:

• A dormant ad account with no structure to build on.
• Resource pages buried under long practice-guide URLs that matched no search intent.
• No way to know which clicks led a parent or teacher to open a resource.

A fourth problem was forming. By May 2026, Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode answered parenting questions directly, and Walden Wise appeared in almost none of them. The team needed a paid campaign that worked now and an organic engine that would outlast the grant.

The Solution: A Nonprofit Google Ads Campaign Built on Keywords, Landing Pages, and Tracking

We started with keyword research, because a grant-funded account lives or dies on relevance. We pulled 144 keywords across branded, primary, and topic pillars, shortlisted 110, and built three search campaigns:

• Parenting Tips and Emotional Support, with ad groups for parents and for adults managing their own triggers.
• Conversation Starters and Parent Support, for parents and teachers who want prompts kids will answer.
• Emotional Awareness, matched to the longer How Am I Really Feeling? practice guide.

A 361-term negative keyword list kept the account away from dating questions, would-you-rather games, and other searches that eat grant dollars. Campaign-level negatives kept the three from bidding against each other.

Landing pages before launch

Before the first ad ran, we wrote and designed three landing pages: /parenting-tips, /conversation-starters, and /emotional-awareness. Each page matched one ad group to one resource, with short copy, one Explore Resource button, and a thank-you redirect that fired a conversion. We also guided the homepage copy so a first-time visitor understood the mission in one scroll. Our Google Ads agency team set up conversion tracking so every grant dollar reported back.

Google Ad Grant management and the SEO audit

From December 15, 2025 to March 10, 2026 we reviewed every search term, promoted winners such as “question of the day for kids” and “morning meeting questions” to exact match, and excluded the rest. The data showed teachers searching from classrooms, so Conversation Starters earned the largest share of budget.

In 2026 we added a nonprofit SEO audit: indexing, page titles, internal links, clean URLs, and answer-first copy on resource pages so AI search engines could quote them. It mirrors the audience-first approach from our Malala Fund engagement.

The Results: 3.9x Monthly Organic Clicks From a Nonprofit Google Ads Campaign and SEO

Paid search, December 1, 2025 to November 6, 2026, from a standing start:

• 57,690 search impressions and 1,610 clicks across three campaigns, up 3,408.7% in clicks against the previous 341 days.
• 2.80% click-through rate and a $2.12 average cost per click.
• 25 tracked resource opens through the thank-you page redirects.

Organic search, from Google Search Console. Average monthly organic clicks rose from 33 in the 13 months before August 2026 to 130 in the three months ending November 4, 2026. That is a 3.9x increase. Across the full engagement window, organic clicks rose 275% and impressions 202.5% against the previous 341 days. Average position improved from 9.9 to 8.3, and the reworked homepage now carries a 12.22% organic click-through rate.

Semrush shows ranking keywords up from under 10 in May 2026 to about 50 by November.

AI search visibility is the newest line. Between mid-May and early November 2026, Walden Wise pages earned 1,360 impressions inside Google’s generative AI features, climbing from under five a day in May to 20 to 45 a day in September and October.

Christina Turner of Walden Wise said:

“Enlimited was patient and clear at every step, then went above and beyond, guiding us on landing page changes and setting up conversion tracking on our site.”

Why Enlimited Worked for Walden Wise: Tracking Before Spending

The decision that mattered most was building the landing pages and conversion tracking before the first grant dollar ran. Most grant accounts launch fast and measure later, so the money is gone before anyone learns what worked. We flipped the order. Three pages, three thank-you redirects, three tracked conversions, then launch.

The second decision was keyword discipline. A 144-term research list cut to 110, plus 361 negatives, kept a capped-budget account on parents and teachers. Three of every four clicks came from desktop computers, which points to teachers searching from school.

The third was building for AI search visibility while the ads ran. The grant buys attention this month. Clean URLs, answer-first resource pages, and a healthcare digital marketing agency approach to trust and plain language built organic traffic that keeps compounding after the grant cycle ends.

Walden Wise brought the science. We brought the system that put it in front of the adults who needed it.

If your organization has a Google grant, a library of resources, and no clear line from click to action, Get Your Free Marketing Plan. We will map where your traffic leaks and which three campaigns to run next.

“We hired Enlimited to set up our Google Ads account, define our keywords, and launch our first campaigns. He was patient and clear at every step, then went above and beyond, guiding us on landing page changes and setting up conversion tracking on our site. Highly talented, deeply experienced, and a genuinely great person to work with. We highly recommend Mohsin Ali and Enlimited to anyone who needs help with paid advertising.” Christina Turner, Walden Wise