What A GREAT Funeral Home Website Can Do For Your Local Business
July 16th, 2015Funeral professionals often have a pretty special relationship with their local communities. If you’re like many other privately owned funeral homes, you’ve likely been in the area for many generations. You live alongside the people that come in and out of your funeral home, you know a lot of the families you work with personally, and the people that walk into your building are not customers – they’re an extension of your own family.
Therefore, when you read about the importance of a great local business website or why you need to up your marketing game, you may have the same thought that many of us have had before:
“Everyone in my community knows my name and knows what I do. My contact info is on my website if they need me. Do I really need to do more than that?”
The short answer? Yes, you do.
In this digital age, your online presence should be just as strong as your presence in the local community. Even if everyone in your town knows your name and knows what you do, you still need a relevant and engaging website. Not only will a great site bring in new families to your funeral home (even families outside of your community who are looking for great service), but it will also help to strengthen ties and loyalty with those that you already know.
Why Is My Website So Important?
In this day and age, people are going online to find information that will help them live a better life. No matter what product or service they’re thinking about purchasing, there’s now a new layer of online searching that must happen before people make their buying decisions. We’re talking product research, service reviews, cost comparisons, real life testimonials, and more. And when it comes to choosing the right funeral home for their loved one, the process is no different. In fact, given the weight and importance of the decision, it may be even more research-heavy.
This is why a great website is so important for reaching your families. An okay website adds one more name to the option pile. But with a quality, educational website, you are taking control of the information that is out there about your funeral home, and you are connecting one-on-one with online researchers who want to know more about their choices. This helps families feel more comfortable with you, and helps them view you as someone they can trust with such an important decision.
However, having a great funeral home website isn’t just a benefit for the families that you serve. It can also have a number of extremely powerful advantages for your funeral home. With a great website built around the right content, you can expect:
1. Increased daily visitors: Quality websites stocked with educational content are typically one of the first results that show up in search engines. That means, if a family Google’s, “funeral home near me,” the funeral home with the best website will typically appear first, and will usually get the most clicks from people who are looking for a local funeral home. If your website has poor content, you can bet that it will be buried by competitors who have put the effort into building a great site.
2. Educated families who value your services: If a family doesn’t understand the value and significance behind the the services that you offer, they are always going to go for the cheapest option. But if they come into your funeral home already educated about how important a funeral service can be to the healing process, or knowing about the beautiful stories that can come from a personalized funeral service, it becomes less about budget and more about creating a meaningful service. Your website serves as the perfect platform to educate and inform families not only about the services that you offer, but also the meaning and value behind them.
3. An even stronger connection with families in the community: While your personal connections with your community are invaluable, having a great website allows you to reach even more people and remain top of mind when families need you most. By hosting online memorial pages for local community members, offering online grief resources for families, and showcasing the local events you host at your funeral home, you are connecting and building relationships with your community before they ever need your funeral services. These pages allow families to know you before ever shaking your hand. And they will feel more at ease with the process by learning about you and your services from the convenience of their home.
As you can see, an educational, quality website is an integral part to any local business. Your families expect an online presence where they can go to learn about your services and research their options. And having a poor website that only focuses on your staff or your location is almost worse than having no website at all.
How To Create A GREAT Website Your Families Will Love
It’s not enough to simply have a website when it comes to connecting with your families. You need to have a great website that gives them all of the information they are looking for, while also providing them with a positive user experience. Whether you are creating a new website from scratch or updating a pre-existing one, your website should be:
1. Simple and intuitive: When families come to a funeral home website looking to plan a service, it’s likely that they are already overwhelmed by the tasks in front of them. Your website shouldn’t be one more confusing aspect of the funeral process that sends them over the edge. Instead, a great funeral home website should be simple, warm and welcoming – giving families the information they are looking for in an effortless design. After all, families will initially spend just a few seconds on each page, and they shouldn’t have to work to find what they want. Make it simple and they will stick around.
2. Professional and educational: Families come to funeral professionals because they are looking for help. They have questions, and they want assistance that will make the process easier for them. Therefore, help educate and provide for your families by featuring informative, actionable resources and frequently asked question pages right on your website. Your resource pages could include advice on coping with grief, the funeral process, or anything related to your services. By doing this, you will help families while also increasing their level of trust.
3. Interactive and social: People don’t just want to be told about their options, or read about the services that are available to them. They want to see them in action, scroll through their options, customize their services, and print out resources that they can actually use. Therefore, don’t make your website a wall of words. Give your families what they are looking for in the ways that they want it. For example, informative videos that guide them through the funeral planning process, a printable pre-planning checklist that they can print out and use at home, or even a social memorial page where they can share an obituary on Facebook or build a family tree around their loved one.
As a respected member of the community, it’s still in your best interest to also build up your reputation in the online world. By doing so, you will allow more people to find you in their time of need, and your services will be enhanced through the immediately accessible information on your website. By utilizing these tips, your services will grow and become open to an entirely new generation.
If you are looking for a simple way to get your funeral home online and create the educational, helpful website that your families are searching for, check out f1Connect today. We’ve created the ultimate online resource that will educate your families about what you have to offer. To learn more, click here or contact us at 1(800)798-2575.
Excellent post, with some great points. Establishing a website in this day and age is possibly the most important thing you can do for your business or organization.