Free Funeral Website Report

Let me ask you a question… Does your web company have your best interests in heart?

As you know, I have been in the funeral home website game for a long time – over 10 years. And in the last few years I have stepped back from the sales side and focused on teaching you about how to build your web presence beyond your website – like with YouTube, Facebook, etc. – mainly because the web site companies weren’t helping their clients beyond the confines of their product offerings (your current website).

Lately I have received some questions from funeral professionals like you asking me about their websites. They think that they are getting ripped-offed… and after looking in to it, I agree!

So lets do a quick test…ok? And we will see if your web site company has your best interests at heart?

Here’s the Quick Test:

On your site…on your homepage (or worse – all pages), is there a link back to their website? It’s usually at the bottom of the page.

If you have answered: YES – then they fail the test!

Your benefit to having links to their site: NOTHING – do your clients really need to know who you do business with? Actually these backlinks could be HURTING you!

Your Web Co’s benefit: backlinks are one of the most important factors that Google uses to rank websites. So what this means is that not only are they getting free advertising on your site, but you are giving them a boost in the search results – off of your back – that’s not cool!

Ideally, those links at the bottom of the page should point to pages within your site.

If you want to learn the truth about funeral home websites and find out the 4 other secrets funeral home website companies don’t want you to know, plus other myths, scams, and misconceptions…

Download the Special Industry Report: The Funeral Home Manager’s Guide to Websites: Myths, Misconceptions and Secrets at: Funeral Website Secrets

I wrote this for funeral professionals like you so that you would finally know the truth about funeral home websites.

I have had one funeral director ask me why am I giving this information out now?

Well, some of the website companies in our industry are beginning to act like old, stodgy, non-proactive funeral directors (not progressive funeral professionals like you) – so I felt it necessary to clear the air.

Then he said, “Are you trying to get back into selling funeral home websites?”

Well, the truth be known – I never left – I just kept a low profile working with some private clients, and now I am going to make that part of my offerings more public…but it’s not going to be for everyone.

You see, I look at websites from a marketing and relationship building perspective – not solely from the technology side. These sites are not for everyone – if a funeral home owner is looking for a cheap website – don’t ask me, there are a lot of low-end offerings out there – or free ones from casket companies.

My sites are going to be focused on 3 things:

• communicating with your community (building relationships / loyalty)
• your firm becoming an “Authority” in Google’s eyes
• and eventually your website becoming a profit center for your firm

Anyway, enough about my websites, there will be many examples in the future, and plus I am still going to continue to share my strategies and case studies on my website. So make sure that you read the Special Industry Report on Funeral Websites at Funeral Website Secrets

I would love your thoughts on the report, so if you could do me a small favor and leave your comments below – thanks!

All of the best for 2009!

…Hepp

PS: Check out the complete report card in the Report and see if your website company is doing everything they can for you! Download the Funeral Home Web Site Guide here

Does Google Know that You Have Online Obits?

One of things that I have learned about how Google works is that it loves new content on websites. Many companies struggle to come up with new content – but not us – not funeral homes!

Why? Because we have online obituaries (in Google’s eyes that’s new content).

Great – we don’t have to worry about adding new content as Google will find the online obits – right?

Nope!  As I study funeral home websites, many of them – actually most of them don’t get their obits “indexed” by Google.

Why? Some sites have the obits hosted on another domain (the sites from the casket companies do this), and others are buried deep within a database and can’t be found by Google (usually template-based sites). And for the funeral home web sites that have obits that do get indexed – it takes days or weeks – a long time after the funeral.

Why is this important? Well, if they are not getting being found by Google then people who use Google can’t find them.  Furthermore, the more pages in your website – the more “Authority” Google thinks you have! So if your website was created with Google in mind (61% of Internet users use Google for searching for information) then you should be adding one new page to Google for every obit (call).  150 calls should equal 100 – 150 new pages per year!  But when I check funeral home websites, most of them have 30 to 200 pages indexed by Google and some of these firms are 500 to 1,000 call firms.

In the video below I share with you a case study that I just conducted, plus I show you how to check to see how many pages you have “indexed” by Google and I give you some tips on how to improve your chances.  Please let me know your thoughts.

More more details about being more “Google-Friendly” visit, www.FuneralFuturistWebsites.com for a Free Report.

Please give me your feedback below…