"Donate" is searched 9,900 times a month in the UK, and a click on Google Ads costs £23.83 on average; "donate to charity" costs £35.67. There's no December spike: the highest month was February 2026, with 14,800. "Free wills month" averages 9,900 searches and reaches 49,500 in March. "Charity christmas cards" averages 9,900 too, with 49,500 in November, and "volunteering" gets 33,100 (DataForSEO data, Google UK, October 2026).
A charity won't rank for "donate", but it can win the searches where giving takes another form: a gift in a will, a pack of Christmas cards, a few hours of volunteering in its own town. On "charity christmas cards" all nine organic results belong to charities or to a not-for-profit retailer.
Below you'll find the three searches with their calendars, who holds the first page and with which pages. The paid side, with its $2 cap per click, is covered in our guide to Google Ad Grants.
Gifts in wills are decided in March and October
The sharpest calendar in the sector belongs to Free Wills Month, which runs every March and October. People aged 55 and over can have a simple will written or updated by a participating solicitor, and the participating charities pay for it. "Free wills month" went from 1,600 searches in December 2025 to 8,100 in February, 49,500 in March and 2,900 in April 2026; in October 2025 it reached 22,200. "Free wills" follows the same pattern, from an average of 9,900 to 18,100 in March. You can compare the curves year on year on Google Trends.
Around the peak sit the searches of people who are getting ready to act: Google suggests "Free Wills Month solicitors near me", "Free Wills Month 2026 near me" and "Free Wills Month for under 55". Press coverage pushes the curve too: on 3 March 2026 the Times & Star ran "Martin Lewis urges people to take advantage of Free Wills Month", and that article was still on page one in October.
The first page for "free wills month", which we read on 10 October 2026, opens with an AI Overview that cites the official Free Wills Month site, Remember A Charity, MoneySavingExpert, Age UK and Mencap. Below it, of the eight organic results four are charity pages: CPRE, St Michael's Hospice, Goodheart Animal Sanctuaries and the RCN Foundation. Three more are pages on freewills.co.uk, each customised for a single small charity (The Welcome Centre, Hope In A New Age, Brighton Natural Health Foundation). The last is the Times & Star article.
Two details are worth copying. The RCN Foundation puts the answer in the snippet, before the click: "Each year, March and October are National Free Wills Months for adults aged 55 and over. 54% of adults in the UK don't have a will." St Michael's Hospice ranks with a page dated October 2021: a page on a fixed URL keeps working every time the campaign comes round again, so there's no need for a new one each season.
A local charity won't beat Age UK on "free wills". But among the related searches Google shows "Age UK Free Wills" and "British Heart Foundation free Wills": the search with the charity's name exists, and it needs a page with the charity's name, its registered charity number and the Free Wills Month dates in plain view.
Charity Christmas cards and gifts are a seasonal online shop
"Charity christmas cards" averages 9,900 searches a month, with 8,100 in September 2025, 18,100 in October, 49,500 in November and 27,100 in December. In March 2026 it was down to 260. "Charity gifts for christmas" goes from 20 in June to 4,400 in November and December, and "charity gifts" from 480 in August to 4,400 in December. Wedding favours are a small market: "charity wedding favours" gets 480 searches a month and never goes above 590.
The first page for "charity christmas cards" is a catalogue of charity shops. In order: Cancer Research UK ("Our 2026 Cards Have Arrived"), Save the Children, Macmillan, Cards for Good Causes, the British Heart Foundation, a Help for Heroes blog post, an Oxfam blog post, Marie Curie and the RSPCA. Five of them show delivery terms in the snippet: £3.95 or £4.95 delivery, or free delivery over £40 or £50. Macmillan puts the price straight in: "10 cards for £6.50".
Every organic result here belongs to a national organisation or to Cards for Good Causes, a not-for-profit retailer that sells for many charities. Smaller charities appear only in the image block above the results, among them Chestnut Tree House, a children's hospice, with a product from its online shop. What gets them there is the same thing that works for the big names: a real shop with products, prices and delivery, built like an online shop and not like a "support us" page.
The cost per click is low: £0.95 on "charity christmas cards", £0.88 on "charity wedding favours", £2.62 on "charity gifts for christmas". It rises to £8.69 on "charity gifts". The Christmas catalogue goes online in September, when "charity christmas cards" is already at 8,100 searches; Cancer Research UK had its 2026 range on page one by 10 October.
| Keyword | Searches/month | CPC (£) | Peak | Low |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| volunteering | 33,100 | 4.14 | 40,500 (Sep) | 27,100 (several months) |
| volunteer opportunities near me | 12,100 | 5.04 | 14,800 (Oct-Nov, Jan, Jun-Jul) | 9,900 (Dec, Apr) |
| donate | 9,900 | 23.83 | 14,800 (Feb) | 8,100 (Apr, Jun) |
| free wills month | 9,900 | 6.04 | 49,500 (Mar) | 1,600 (Dec) |
| charity christmas cards | 9,900 | 0.95 | 49,500 (Nov) | 260 (Mar) |
| free wills | 9,900 | 9.64 | 18,100 (Mar) | 6,600 (Dec, Jul-Aug) |
| crowdfunding | 9,900 | 5.33 | 12,100 (Sep, Jan, May) | 6,600 (Jul-Aug) |
| fundraising ideas | 8,100 | 2.90 | 12,100 (Sep) | 4,400 (Dec, Aug) |
| gift aid | 8,100 | 6.25 | 9,900 (Jan, Mar) | 6,600 (Dec, Jun-Aug) |
| volunteering london | 6,600 | 5.66 | 9,900 (Oct) | 2,900 (Jun-Jul) |
| london marathon charity places | 2,900 | 4.36 | 9,900 (Jul) | 590 (Feb) |
| volunteering manchester | 1,900 | 5.25 | 2,400 (Sep-Nov, Jan) | 1,600 (Dec, Apr-May, Aug) |
| charity gifts | 1,300 | 8.69 | 4,400 (Dec) | 480 (Aug) |
| charity gifts for christmas | 1,000 | 2.62 | 4,400 (Nov-Dec) | 20 (Jun) |
| donate to charity | 1,000 | 35.67 | 1,600 (Mar) | 720 (Aug) |
| charity wedding favours | 480 | 0.88 | 590 (Oct, Jan, Mar) | 210 (Dec) |
| leave a gift in your will | 110 | 12.10 | 320 (Sep) | 40 (Jun) |
Volunteering is searched by city, and public bodies hold the first page
"Volunteering london" gets 6,600 searches a month and "volunteering manchester" 1,900, both highest in the autumn and in January. In London the low is in June and July, at 2,900. "Volunteering" on its own is steadier, between 27,100 and 40,500 searches a month, and "volunteer opportunities near me" adds another 12,100.
The first page of "volunteering manchester" on 10 October 2026 opens with Volunteer Centre Manchester, followed by the University of Manchester's Volunteer Hub and Manchester City Council. Further down come the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester Mind, Manchester Adult Education, FareShare Greater Manchester, a listings site (mcrvip.com) and the Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership. Only two of the ten results are charities recruiting for themselves, and Manchester Mind's snippet says it is "currently NOT recruiting for qualified volunteer counsellors".
The local pack is made up of support bodies: Manchester Community Central with 15 reviews, The Conservation Volunteers with 4 and Salford Community and Voluntary Services with 24. With so few reviews in the pack, a charity with an up-to-date Google Business Profile has a realistic way in.
FareShare shows what the page should look like: its snippet lists the roles ("warehouse roles, van driving and office support"). A page that says what a volunteer does, how many hours a week, in which part of town, with what requirements and whom to contact has little direct competition from other charities on Manchester's first page. Google's related searches show how to divide it: "Food bank volunteering Manchester", "Animal volunteering Manchester", "One-off volunteering Manchester", "Volunteering Manchester under 18". It's local SEO applied to people looking for volunteers instead of customers.
Recommended reading: how to use the $10,000 a month in ad credit that Google gives charities without getting the account suspended, in our guide to Google Ad Grants for charities.
Frequently asked questions
By January for March and by August for October. Searches for "free wills month" reach 49,500 in March and 22,200 in October, against 1,600 in December (DataForSEO, Google Ads UK, 2025-2026). A new page takes weeks to rank.
On the generic search it's hard but not closed: in October 2026 four of the eight organic results were charity pages, including St Michael's Hospice and Goodheart Animal Sanctuaries, and three were freewills.co.uk pages for small charities. The search with the charity's name next to "free wills" is within reach.
From September to December, with a peak of 49,500 searches in November 2025 and 27,100 in December. By March 2026 they had dropped to 260 a month.
They do different jobs. Ad Grants gives up to $10,000 a month in ads but with a $2 cap per click (about £1.51), which rules out searches like "donate" (£23.83). SEO works on the searches that remain: gifts in wills, Christmas cards and gifts, volunteering in your town.
With the city: "volunteering london" gets 6,600 searches a month and "volunteering manchester" 1,900. In Manchester the first page is mostly councils, the NHS and support bodies, with only two charities recruiting for themselves, so a page with roles, hours and requirements has room.
Where to start
Search Google for your charity's name followed by "free wills", then by "leave a gift in your will". If the first result isn't one of your pages, with your registered charity number already visible in the snippet, write it now: a title with the charity's name and "gifts in wills", the charity number in the first line, the wording a solicitor needs and the dates of the next Free Wills Month. Published in October, it has five months to rank before March.
If you'd like to know which of these searches are within reach for your organisation, get in touch: it's the work we do with SEO, before suggesting any campaign.
