It’s a valid question.  Prior to the digital revolution introduced by the Internet, families would drive to funeral homes to collect information on services and prices, particularly when shopping pre-need.  Since this digital revolution , families now search websites.  As the Internet has become the dominant shopping and information source for all products and services, the initial point of contact for consumers considering your funeral home is no longer your front door but the splash page of your website.  Certainly, funeral service remains a brick and mortar business, but today, few consumers will begin their search for a funeral home by driving door to door.

Maybe the question is, can families find your front door? SEO has worked its way into contemporary lexicon relatively quickly, as even the most novice internet searcher has come to understand how Search Engine Optimization determines where a website appears in search results.  For many businesses, SEO isn’t just the best, but may also be the only viable advertising media.  A moderate size business in a major metro market may be pushed out of traditional media-based advertising due to cost, but can raise its visibility with prospects interested in their specific product or service through effective SEO.

Most funeral businesses are not located in expensive media markets, but instead they are in small to midsize communities. Or they serve residents in a specific segment of a large metro area where cable, billboard and possibly newspaper advertising rates are affordable.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is all forms of website marketing including SEO.  It exists every day in all forms of media advertising, but could very well go unnoticed.  GEICO, Progressive Insurance, Hotels.com, Trivago and many other internet-based businesses use television advertising, both cable and broadcast, as well as billboard, social media and blogs to build traffic to their websites.

The objective of a search engine marketing campaign is to present your website in front of searcher’s based on the keywords they have searched for on Google, Yahoo! or Bing. Two of the primary ranking factors considered by these search engine algorithms are content and proper website optimization. Websites with content that is created to provide a good user experience and is correctly optimized helps your website rank above the competition. It is also beneficial to include your URL in all marketing messages, whether that be social media posts, print materials , TV commercials or radio ads because the more traffic to your website , the better.

The same applies to funeral homes.  Advertising your domain address in various forms of media will increase traffic (both from the advertising itself, as well as from the algorithms) and ensure that families can find your digital front door. Contact us to learn how to start search engine marketing for your website so families can find your front door.