What Families Want In A Funeral Home Website – Part 1
August 23rd, 2011
Your Funeral Home Website Must Rise Above the Online Clutter
There is nothing fun about arranging a funeral service. Most people have probably only attended a few of them during their lives and have no idea about what’s required. To add to their grief, many potential clients have never been the one responsible for planning a funeral before.
They may start with a Web search for a funeral home in their area. They begin the tedious process of reviewing them, looking for something that helps them to decide which firm to call.
After the second or third site, the web pages start blurring together. All of the firms look the same, talk about their facilities, car fleets and have lists of boring obituaries – but nothing really helpful.
And then they click on your funeral home website. Right there, on the home page, the content is speaking to them, addressing their most pressing questions right off the bat.
Their choices for what they need to do next are clear. Your funeral home website focuses on answering their questions, removing doubt and helping them understand what’s involved in arranging their loved-one’s memorial.
In this way, your website will differentiate your firm from so many others by providing immediate and recognizable value that your prospective families seek.
Here are 3 goals the content on your firm’s website must achieve to rise above the online clutter: 
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Connect immediately: From the first few seconds, the look and feel of your site should build trust and rapport, by speaking to the concerns of prospective families in need. When your site is more about them than it is about you, you’ll gain credibility.
For example, a short video clip can address their most pressing questions while giving them an overview of what next steps should be. At the same time, video gives them an impression of what working with your firm is like.
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Answer questions and educate: Families who need services are often not sure what they want or need. Your site should answer questions about the value of funerals, options for services, and etiquette. They may not necessarily want traditional services. Be sure to provide answers to all sorts of situations. Remind people that rituals mark significant transitions but don’t have to be sad and depressing.
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Provide choices: There are many decisions needed for funerals: what kind of service, religious or not, casket, embalming, cremation, urn, gifts, donations? Provide choices, but don’t confuse people in their time of grief with too much information. Keep it simple on your website. A confused mind with too many decisions to make will click away to another site.
The look and feel of your website is also as important as the actual content. With today’s baby boomers aging (76 million of them!), they are likely to seek out non-traditional funeral services. The colors and fonts and photos on your site don’t have to be dark or drab. Your website design can still convey a sense of respect without being sad and mournful.
Within the first ten seconds of landing on your site, visitors form an impression. They will decide to stay and read what you have to offer based on those first impressions. Ask yourself these questions:
- Is your website site inviting? Is it attractive?
- Does it stand out from your competitors?
- Does it do a good job of connecting with the immediate needs of families?
- Does it provide enough information about funeral services without confusing readers?
If not, then consider getting help for the specific requirements of a modern, interactive funeral home website. Your families will be the ones who will benefit because you’ll be able to serve them better.
We know it’s really hard for anyone to judge their own website, so try this test:
Ask a few friends to open up your website and look for only 15 seconds. (Set a timer if needed.) Then ask them questions about what they remember seeing.
We’re curious as to how people form their first impressions of funeral home websites. We’d love to hear from you. Please leave a comment share what you find out.
Good blog. If funeral directors kept an eye on
their web traffic they would see that far more people visit their
website on a daily basis than actually walk in to their funeral home. I
have been inside of hundreds of funeral homes and the successful ones
are always tastefully decorated and well maintained. That isn’t always
the case with their websites. If a casket company offered to decorate
the inside of your funeral home for free, but they were going to use
materials that went out of style over ten years ago, you probably
wouldn’t take them up on the offer. Unfortunately, that is exactly what
many funeral directors do with their websites. Your online presence is
every bit as important as your physical presence, and as far as
marketing goes, it is extremely affordable. To most families an eight
year old web site is far more noticeable than an eight year old
Cadillac.
[…] my previous post of this series, I shared 3 ways to make Your Funeral Home Website Rise Above the Online Clutter. Now that you’ve engaged your client families, let’s take a look at how you can serve them, […]
[…] so now that I’ve introduced you to some ways to make Your Funeral Home Website Rise Above the Online Clutter and shared ideas about How to Use Your Funeral Website to Serve the Living, I’m going to wrap up […]
I like how you talked about how when people are looking for a funeral home, the service’s website needs to be left up to date and build a relationship of trust with its clients. People that are need of a funeral home service will pay attention more to a service that treats them like a person or one that is easy to understand. Thank you for talking about some important factors needed to choose which is the best funeral home to work with.