Content Is King: Using Great Content to Supercharge Case Counts

I know your time is important, so I’ll get right to the point: If you want 2018 to be the best year ever for your funeral home, repeat after me:

Content is king.

Okay, now that you’ve repeated it, you’re probably wondering: What the heck does that mean?

To put it simply, to have the kind of marketing that’s going to win both at-need and pre-need agreements in your local area, you need to have great online marketing. And the key to great online marketing is to have a high-performing website that’s full of excellent content.

In this digital age, when we talk about marketing, we’re really talking about internet marketing. Because that’s what marketing is now. While some old-school (offline) marketing practices are still hanging in there, the reality is that most people now choose service providers by researching online.

And yes, that’s true for death care services just as much as it is for other business types. Traditional forms of advertising are going by the wayside in every industry, whether it’s retail or hospitality or death care. Even people in their sixties and seventies are online a lot these days. That’s where you need to reach them.

And to do that, you need a website that converts visitors into clientele. It can’t just be a place for people to find your phone number and read a short bio about you and your staff. It needs to sell your business to visitors — in a thoughtful and reverent way, of course.

A well-designed, professional-looking website is great — don’t get me wrong — but all you’ve done is pour the foundation. Now you need to build a great marketing tool on top of it. That’s what every business website ultimately is, even for a funeral home: a marketing tool.

An overly basic, content-deficient site doesn’t help your ranking in local online searches. It doesn’t communicate trustworthiness and credibility with visitors. It doesn’t differentiate you from your local competition.

This is a place where you can seal the deal with both pre-need and at-need clientele and really drive case counts — if you ensure it’s filled with relevant content. That’s how you get your website ranked higher than your competitors, and that’s how you convert visitors into clientele.

The major search engines, particularly Google, are primarily focused on creating the best possible experience for users. That’s why these platforms place a massive emphasis on ranking sites that clearly benefit their visitors the most. And the main way they make that determination is by reviewing the quantity and quality of content on the particular site.

While text is the first priority in this regard, elements such as photos, graphics, and even videos are also important. Using all these aspects in a complementary fashion lets you tell your story and market your business in the most effective way.

The key is to blend all these elements and incorporate keywords into all of it in a usable way. The quality of the text — including headlines, descriptions, FAQs, and even photo captions — is the most critical factor in differentiating your site from those that shovel a bunch of poorly incorporated keywords into virtually unreadable copy.

In fact, Google has updated its algorithms to seek out low-quality content intended to “fool” the rankings with dubious copy that provides human visitors little-to-no benefit.

Creating content that satisfies both human visitors and search engine spiders is a tricky balance. You don’t want to have a bunch of text that’s just arbitrarily packed with keywords intended to punch up your local search rankings. You’re in the business of communicating reverence and trustworthiness with potential clientele.

It’s often beneficial to work with a professional copywriter, particularly one who has a good understanding of search engine optimization (SEO). A good one knows how to write thoughtful, compelling copy that also helps your site get ranked highly in local searches.

If you do write your website copy in-house, make sure it’s highly informative, clear and grammatical. Search engines have developed to the point they can even mark you off for misspellings and grammatical mistakes. But just as critically, such errors will undermine your credibility with human visitors.

Consider writing articles that will educate and inform people considering your services. What are all the considerations for pre-planning a funeral? What do families need to do first after suffering an unexpected loss? What information can you provide to walk them through this process?

The more high-quality content you have, the better. With that said, make sure the content is original. If Google or other search engines determine the copy has been swiped wholesale from another site — or even if it’s just been tweaked a bit here or there — that will severely hurt your SEO.

Also, don’t forget that search engines (and your human visitors) aren’t just looking for text content. Images play a huge role in bolstering your website content. Videos do as well. Try to add all three to greatly increase case counts in 2018.

(NOTE:  All the traffic in the world doesn€™t help if your website doesn€™t efficiently convert visitors into clientele. Test your site with our free Website Analyzer now and learn how to improve conversion rates.)