How to Rank Funeral Home Websites on Google
Here are our favorite tips to offer funeral homes, broken out into technical, on-page, and off-page suggestions.
These SEO strategies apply to traditional funeral homes, cremation services, memorial service providers, embalming services, funeral pre-planning companies, funeral flower delivery services, pet funeral services, veteran funeral services, green burial services, virtual funeral and memorial services, and other funeral homes.
1.) Technical SEO Tips for Funeral Homes
Technical SEO refers to optimizing your funeral home website's infrastructure so it can be properly crawled and indexed by search engines, which includes aspects like site speed, mobile optimization, XML sitemaps, and structured data markup. This ensures search engines can easily access, understand, and rank the website's content.
We can help out with all of these items and more, or you can handle them on your own:
- Ensure your website has a responsive design that works well desktop, small laptop, tablet, and mobile devices. There are a lot of screen sizes out there to accomodate. On a desktop computer, you can resize your browser window from large to small to see how different layout elements adjust for smaller screen sizes.
- Review your website's speed with a tool like Google PageSpeed Insights. Don't get caught up trying to pass Core Web Vitals. It isn't always possible on complex websites and might not be worth the investment. Instead, try to fix simple things to get a score of 60+.
- Use HTTPS encryption for website security to protect sensitive information such as personal details of clients and to show credibility to visitors.
- Create and submit a sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools to help search engines index your website and easily find all the pages related to funeral services such as funeral arrangements, cremation services, and pre-planning.
- Implement local business schema markup to help search engines better understand the content on your website, which can lead to rich snippets in search results.
- Use canonical tags to prevent duplicate content issues, especially if you have multiple pages with similar information about funeral services or packages.
- Monitor your website's crawl errors and fix them promptly, as this can improve the visibility of your website in search engine results pages. You can find such errors in Google Search Console.
2.) On-Page SEO Tips for Funeral Homes
On-page SEO involves optimizing each page of your funeral home website to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic in search engines. This often focuses on elements like keyword presence, meta tags, quality of content, user experience, page organization, and internal linking.
We can help out with all of these items and more, or you can handle them on your own:
- Create high-quality, original content that targets your audience's search intent, such as grief support resources or funeral etiquette, to establish authority and build trust with potential customers. While ChatGTP is a popular content writing tool, don't rely solely on AI content. It is often generic, repetitive, and/or inaccurate. Be sure to proofread content before you post it.
- Use relevant keywords, such as funeral services, cremation, and grief support, in your website's page titles and meta descriptions to attract potential customers who are looking for these services.
- Optimize your website's headings and subheadings with target keywords related to your funeral services, such as memorial services or funeral arrangements, to help search engines understand the content and improve the user experience.
- Include target keywords in image alt tags, such as urns or caskets, to help search engines understand the context of your images and improve the accessibility of your website.
- Use internal linking to help search engines understand the structure and hierarchy of your website, and to guide visitors to relevant pages, such as pre-planning services or obituaries.
- Use descriptive URLs with relevant keywords, such as /funeral-services/cremation, to improve the visibility and accessibility of your website.
- Display customer reviews and testimonials prominently on your website to build social proof and trust with potential customers who are looking for a funeral home.
- Scan your website for broken links and fix them right away to improve the user experience and prevent negative impact on search engine rankings. You can use this free tool from Ahrefs to scan for broken links.
3.) Off-Page SEO Tips for Funeral Homes
Off-page SEO involves all the actions taken outside of your funeral home website to impact your rankings within search engine results pages (SERPs). This includes strategies like link building, social media marketing, and reputation management. Such efforts help increase your website's reputation, authority, and visibility online.
We can help out with all of these items and more, or you can handle them on your own:
- Build useful backlinks from relevant websites, such as hospices or healthcare providers, to improve your website's authority and search engine rankings.
- Create and maintain a strong presence on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to showcase your funeral services, engage with customers, and build brand awareness.
- Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews on Google My Business, Yelp, and other review sites to build social proof and credibility with potential customers who are looking for a funeral home.
- Collaborate with other local businesses, such as florists or caterers, to cross-promote services and build backlinks to each other's websites.
- Create listings in local business directories and citation sites, such as The National Funeral Directors Association and Funeralocity, to increase visibility and improve local SEO.
- Create informative and shareable content, such as end-of-life planning guides or memorial service ideas, to attract backlinks and improve your website's authority.
- Make videos to showcase your funeral home's services or atmosphere, and build engagement with potential customers.
- Monitor your online reputation and respond promptly to customer feedback and reviews, whether positive or negative, to show that you value your customers and are committed to providing the best possible funeral services.
We can review your website and rankings, then provide a recommendation on which areas of technical, on-page, and off-page search engine optimization need the most attention. This will help establish a budget and scope for ranking you higher in search results!
Alternatively, if you don't need help improving your rankings, check out this guide on DIY SEO!
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Top Keywords for Funeral Home SEO
Looking for suggested keywords to target within the SEO campaign for your funeral home? Whether you plan to hire us, or optimize the site yourself, we've got you covered!
Before starting an SEO service for a funeral home, we like to scan the website and see what you've got to work with for content and link authority.
From there, we'll check to see what types of services you'd like to promote. Maybe you specialize in cremation services and want to attract clients looking for affordable options. Perhaps you just don't feel like you are getting enough leads for your grief support services.
Having this information helps us determine what types of keywords to focus on for content writing and link building.
Focus Keywords for Funeral Homes
- Funeral homes [city/area]
- Cremation services [city/area]
- Burial services [city/area]
- Memorial services [city/area]
- Pre-planning [city/area]
- Funeral directors [city/area]
- Grief support [city/area]
- Urns [city/area]
- Caskets [city/area]
- Cremation jewelry [city/area]
- Embalming [city/area]
- Viewings [city/area]
- Transportation [city/area]
- Funeral arrangements [city/area]
- Veteran services [city/area]
- Green burials [city/area]
Keyword Tip #1: Funeral homes often target keywords related to their services and location. This helps you attract potential clients who are searching for funeral homes or specific funeral services in the area they live in.
Keyword Tip #2: You should consider targeting long-tail keywords, which are more specific and less competitive. For example, "direct cremation services under $1000 in San Francisco" may be easier to rank for than just "cremation services".
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