How to Keep Families Engaged on your Website

Funeral Home Marketing Funeral Industry News January 15, 2018
CDFuneralNews

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How to Keep Families Engaged on your Website

For many funeral homes, the website can be a great way to generate engagement with families. When they spend time on your website, families are more educated and more likely to call when the need arises. As a bonus, Google rewards websites that keep visitors online with higher SEO rankings.

One metric to look at in determining engagement is your website’s bounce rate, or the number of people who leave your site after visiting only one page. A simple way to determine your bounce rate is to check out your Google Analytics dashboard. If your families are leaving after less than one minute, or your bounce rate is higher than 50 percent, you need to find ways to increase the time families are spending on your site.

Here are four tips for keeping families on your website longer:

  1. Make content “scannable.” Most people read only 25 percent of the words on a web page. Therefore, it’s important to design pages so they are easy to read. Use attention-grabbing headlines and subheads to move readers through your content. Keep paragraphs short and include bulleted lists to break up large blocks of copy. Be sure to bold or italicize key words and phrases.
  2. Add images and multimedia. Although content is king when it comes to marketing, visual content is essential to increase website engagement. In a world of shortened attention spans, compelling images, videos and infographics can enhance content, increase engagement and boost your funeral home’s reputation and awareness.
  3. Use internal links. One way to keep families moving through your site is to link them to related pages on your website via internal links. This can be done on key website pages and blog posts and helps drive visitors to important areas on your site. When using internal links, be sure to make them easy to find with the standard blue color and use keywords to provide SEO value.
  4. Add new content regularly. If your blog isn’t updated regularly or if other information is outdated, families have no reason to return to your website. Keep blogs frequent and regular, highlight news and current events, and provide useful information that will keep families coming back for more.

The more engaging your website is, the longer families will stay. When they spend more time on your site, you’ll increase your top of mind awareness with families and your community.

Joe Weigel is the owner of Weigel Strategic Marketing, a communications firm focused on the funeral profession that delivers expertise and results across three interrelated marketing disciplines: strategy, branding and communications. You can visit his website at weigelstrategicmarketing.webs.com. He also can be reached at 317-608-8914 or joseph.weigel@gmail.com.