… and it isn’t any different for families who have lost a loved one.

It’s clear that having a website for your funeral home is essential to your success. However, creating a website just to have one isn’t going to attract potential families. In fact, if you don’t provide families with the information they need to choose the right funeral home, your website could be potentially hurting your business.

The difference between a mediocre and a great funeral home website:

#1

A mediocre funeral home website: Tells your customers about YOU and YOUR products.
A great funeral home website: Offers family-focused content that informs and educates.

Your website content should focus on the wants and needs of your families. Your families go to your website to get the information they need to make a decision when “shopping around” for a funeral service provider. Would content that describes your funeral home history and staff help them make that decision to choose your funeral home? Probably not. If you want your website to be a valuable business asset, write content that will spark their interest, and educate them with the information they need to make a purchasing decision.

How you can do this: Read through your website and ask yourself “Is this information helpful to my customers?”

Make sure your website includes content like:

– Information on the different services your funeral home provides for honoring life
– Pricing (some states require pricing on your site)
– Content that demonstrates the value of a funeral service
– Personalization options
– Pre-need education content
– Grief support resources
– FAQ’s
– A guide that walks your families through the process of planning a funeral

#2

A mediocre funeral home website: Shortcuts on design or feels dark and gloomy.
A great funeral home website: Passes the Granny Test with user-friendly design that shows a celebration of life.

It may be hard to see why design is so important – after all, looks aren’t everything, right? Let’s take Apple, for example. Apple has the same products as their competitors – MP3 players, computers, phones – yet they’re seen as innovators. Why? Most people don’t know that Apple isn’t actually a technology company – they’re a design company. Apple took the same products everyone else has been selling for years, and re-designed them be more customer-oriented. Now, they have one of the largest market shares because customers love their products.

How you can do this: Make sure your design is simple, uplifting, user-friendly and focused on the customer experience.

#3

A mediocre funeral home website: Doesn’t incorporate search engine optimization (SEO)
A great funeral home website: Gets you found before your competition with SEO

Currently, more than 75% of the U.S. population is on the web. If you have a website for your funeral home, make sure you are ranking on the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Now more than ever, your families turn to the Internet to search for products, services and local businesses. SEO is what will help your funeral firm stand out from the competition in all that online clutter. Getting found online and attracting families is critical to the success of your funeral firm, especially in a world that’s gone digital!

How you can do this: There are many services out there that can help you boost your SEO and rank high on the major search engines, but if you have a little extra time, you can make small changes to your website yourself. Start by doing keyword research on Google’s free Keyword Research Tool and enter in your website URL. From there, you can figure out what keyword’s potential customers are using to find you. Find the keywords with the highest Global Monthly Searches, and incorporate those words into your content as much as possible.

#4

A mediocre funeral home website: Is edited and maintained by a third party company

A great funeral home website: Has a management system that puts you in control of your website

Are you paying a third-party website to maintain your website for you every month? What happens if you want to edit the content on your site – or add a new service to it? You’ll spend your valuable time waiting to get that company on the phone so they can do the editing. Fortunately, there are many website providers out there that allow you to retain control of your site with simple, easy-to-use website editors.

How you can do this: Choose a provider who allows you to easily manage your content from a website editor. Make sure you find one that allows you to add photos, feature community events, add pages, easily change your design and even monitor your website statistics.

Is your firm is looking for a website platform that will save you time, reduce lost opportunities, put you in control of your firm’s online presence, and attract families? funeralOne’s website platform – f1Connect – is the website platform you’re looking for. Click here to learn more.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Krystal Penrose is the content marketer and funeralOne blog manager. As content marketer, her role is to research the changing needs of today’s families, and present them to funeral professionals through educational content. Krystal also engages with thought leaders in the industry to help create a professional online community for funeral professionals across the country. funeralOne’s solutions include: website design, aftercare, eCommerce, and personalization software. For more information about funeralOne, visit www.funeralOne.com.

Krystal Penrose

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