Three Old-School SEO Strategies Weighing Down Your Funeral Home Marketing

Are you still placing keywords on a pedestal (and all over your site)? Or chasing the number one spot among local funeral homes on Google in lieu of more lucrative online funeral home marketing efforts?

It’s time to close the books on some old-school SEO tactics and enroll in a higher level of current online marketing.

1. Treating Keywords as King

Keywords are still important, but they’re not content royalty — more like content soldiers. You still need to station them at strategic locations such as title tags and the meta description, but algorithms have evolved, so you’re no longer tied to forcing awkward phrases such as “funeral home Dallas” throughout content.

In fact, because Google currently puts more value on content that’s helpful and relevant for users than on SEO-stuffing, you shouldn’t force keywords where they don’t easily fit. Work them in when it’s natural, but otherwise, spend your efforts on creating quality content that speaks organically to individuals and families in their time of need.

2. Chasing the Top Spot in Search Engine Results

Google isn’t the same search engine it was a decade ago, and you have a lot more options for connecting with your audience now. Spending all your resources chasing a top spot for every keyword is simply poor marketing investment when you can get a lot more ROI working for feature snippets or customizing your Google My Business page.

Search engine rankings remain very important in online marketing for funeral homes, but going after that top spot isn’t the only tactic you should spend time on.

3. Relying Heavily on Links for Search Engine Ranking

Link building used to be an easy way to increase performance in the search engine results, but in targeting spammy practices and less-than-transparent “black hat” SEO tactics, Google has made it harder to get good results out of links.

That’s not to say they aren’t important and shouldn’t be part of an overall online marketing strategy. Funeral homes can benefit from links on local news or chamber of commerce pages, association listings, or industry blogs. But those should be ancillary to what really matters: techniques such as creating user-friendly websites, quality content and well-tested PPC campaigns or other online advertising.

Don’t let old-school SEO habits bring your conversion rates and revenue down. Take time to learn what works today and integrate those tactics into your funeral home marketing campaigns.

(Note: Ready to supercharge the leads you get from the internet and convert them into real-life clientele? In his free webinar, marketing expert Welton Hong delivers practical techniques you can employ today. Click here to register!)