Part 1 - Obituaries - The New Commodity in Funeral Service?
The online obituary has been around now for ten or so years. Prior to the onset of publishing obituaries on a funeral home website, reading an obit in a newspaper was the primary source for finding out who passed away, service details, etc. Newspapers originally fought hard to keep obituaries off-line to try to protect the value of their printed news. Now we are seeing newspapers, radio stations and TV stations jumping into the online obituary space fast and furious. Companies like Legacy.com are in the process of recruiting newspapers and companies like Tributes.com are courting TV stations – all of which results in more and more online obituary competition for the funeral home.
In today’s funeral service environment – with the ever-increasing number of entities entering into the online obituary market – it is imperative that funeral homes develop strategies that will maximize their search engine optimization for both the funeral home and their published obituaries. From our perspective at Got Funeral?, we are seeing the commoditization of obituaries – much like we are seeing with caskets. What is everyone in the obituary publishing business vying for? – the answer is web traffic, which leads to advertising revenues for the host. Analytics from funeral home web site traffic tells us that 70% or more of the traffic coming to a funeral home is obituary traffic. Quick math equation: outsourcing obits = giving away 70%+ of funeral home web traffic.
So, you are a funeral home – what are the factors that you need to be most aware of? Before you effectively outsource your online obituaries to a third party publisher, you may want to consider the following:
· The number one reason why consumers visit a funeral home’s website is…..for obituaries. Once you outsource the obituaries to legacy.com, tributes.com, yourtribute.com, etc. – you are essentially giving away your obituary web traffic to another company
· Why would you choose to dilute your search engine optimization by effectively giving away your largest online asset?
· Even if you are publishing your obituaries with a third party for free – you are still contracting with them to redirect traffic that used to come to your site for reading obituaries and leaving condolences. When you stop and think about it – third party obit publishers should be paying you for your traffic that they are using to attract advertisers to their website
· Who is in charge of making sure the family is aware of all the different sites that are potentially collecting online condolences? Is it the funeral home’s responsibility, the third party publisher’s, the family’s?
· Who is responsible for keeping the obituary web space respectful and dignified? When we go to certain sites and see ads to help us lose 6 pounds of belly fat next to the obituary – that is not what would be deemed optimal or respectful in our eyes
· How readily can your obituaries be published to social networks like Facebook and Twitter and will the traffic be directed back to your funeral home’s web site?
· How do you protect your funeral home’s online brand when you outsource your obituaries to a third party? We have seen competitive banner ads headlining obituaries and many other examples of brand dilution
· With more and more people performing direct Google searches using the name of the deceased to try to find the online obituary – the funeral home needs to maximize their search engine optimization to make sure they are the first obituary match a consumer finds in their search. Try this on your own obituaries to see how your postings rank
There are several other considerations, but these tend to be the most prevalent when trying to figure out what to do and what not to do when publishing obituaries online. We advise and direct our clients to do everything possible to maximize their search engine optimization – including retaining the publishing rights of the online obituary, setting up a fan page via Facebook and Twitter, cross networking with local businesses (florists, caterers, hotels, etc) & many other deliberate strategies to protect the funeral home’s online brand, optimize their search-ability and provide them with monetization opportunities. This is not an exact science unfortunately, but you can take deliberate and decisive steps toward making sure your funeral home shows up ahead of other online published obituary sources.
Our next blog will focus on some additional strategies to helping the funeral home maximize their search engine optimization and obituary rank via Google or other search engines. Make sure you stay tuned in. We would all agree that the internet and technology are causing huge changes within funeral service – our goal is to help our clients understand how they can position their funeral homes most effectively in this ever changing environment.
The online obituary has been around now for ten or so years. Prior to the onset of publishing obituaries on a funeral home website, reading an obit in a newspaper was the primary source for finding out who passed away, service details, etc. Newspapers originally fought hard to keep obituaries off-line to try to protect the value of their printed news. Now we are seeing newspapers, radio stations and TV stations jumping into the online obituary space fast and furious. Companies like Legacy.com are in the process of recruiting newspapers and companies like Tributes.com are courting TV stations – all of which results in more and more online obituary competition for the funeral home.
In today’s funeral service environment – with the ever-increasing number of entities entering into the online obituary market – it is imperative that funeral homes develop strategies that will maximize their search engine optimization for both the funeral home and their published obituaries. From our perspective at Got Funeral?, we are seeing the commoditization of obituaries – much like we are seeing with caskets. What is everyone in the obituary publishing business vying for? – the answer is web traffic, which leads to advertising revenues for the host. Analytics from funeral home web site traffic tells us that 70% or more of the traffic coming to a funeral home is obituary traffic. Quick math equation: outsourcing obits = giving away 70%+ of funeral home web traffic.
So, you are a funeral home – what are the factors that you need to be most aware of? Before you effectively outsource your online obituaries to a third party publisher, you may want to consider the following:
· The number one reason why consumers visit a funeral home’s website is…..for obituaries. Once you outsource the obituaries to legacy.com, tributes.com, yourtribute.com, etc. – you are essentially giving away your obituary web traffic to another company
· Why would you choose to dilute your search engine optimization by effectively giving away your largest online asset?
· Even if you are publishing your obituaries with a third party for free – you are still contracting with them to redirect traffic that used to come to your site for reading obituaries and leaving condolences. When you stop and think about it – third party obit publishers should be paying you for your traffic that they are using to attract advertisers to their website
· Who is in charge of making sure the family is aware of all the different sites that are potentially collecting online condolences? Is it the funeral home’s responsibility, the third party publisher’s, the family’s?
· Who is responsible for keeping the obituary web space respectful and dignified? When we go to certain sites and see ads to help us lose 6 pounds of belly fat next to the obituary – that is not what would be deemed optimal or respectful in our eyes
· How readily can your obituaries be published to social networks like Facebook and Twitter and will the traffic be directed back to your funeral home’s web site?
· How do you protect your funeral home’s online brand when you outsource your obituaries to a third party? We have seen competitive banner ads headlining obituaries and many other examples of brand dilution
· With more and more people performing direct Google searches using the name of the deceased to try to find the online obituary – the funeral home needs to maximize their search engine optimization to make sure they are the first obituary match a consumer finds in their search. Try this on your own obituaries to see how your postings rank
There are several other considerations, but these tend to be the most prevalent when trying to figure out what to do and what not to do when publishing obituaries online. We advise and direct our clients to do everything possible to maximize their search engine optimization – including retaining the publishing rights of the online obituary, setting up a fan page via Facebook and Twitter, cross networking with local businesses (florists, caterers, hotels, etc) & many other deliberate strategies to protect the funeral home’s online brand, optimize their search-ability and provide them with monetization opportunities. This is not an exact science unfortunately, but you can take deliberate and decisive steps toward making sure your funeral home shows up ahead of other online published obituary sources.
Our next blog will focus on some additional strategies to helping the funeral home maximize their search engine optimization and obituary rank via Google or other search engines. Make sure you stay tuned in. We would all agree that the internet and technology are causing huge changes within funeral service – our goal is to help our clients understand how they can position their funeral homes most effectively in this ever changing environment.
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