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Last month we published an article talking about the opportunity that funeral home owners and funeral directors have in attracting more local search traffic to their website by optimizing their sites with local keywords and keyword phrases. Local search is a hugely underused tactic by all businesses, but especially funeral homes. We provided some simple tips for updating your funeral home website in order to drive more local traffic, which can ultimately mean more customers for your funeral home services. That said, after doing the work to update your funeral home website with local search terms, you need an easy way to understand how your hard work is paying off. In my opinion, the best free tool on the market is Google Analytics. In this article we are going to discuss Google Analytics, provide you with some advice for tracking your website, and help you better understand how your local search terms are working in regards to sending high quality local traffic to your website.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics offers a plethora of different reports. To try to get into it all you would need a Master’s Degree in Data Mining. We are going to keep this article focused on how you can track whether or not your local search terms are actually driving more local residents to your website. Once you’ve setup a Google Analytics account and you’ve added your funeral home’s website to the system Google will automatically start tracking the visitors to your website. Google Analytics will show you your top ranking keywords, hopefully some of which will be your local keywords. Google Analytics will also show you via a map just where your search traffic is coming from. For funeral homes, you are really only interested in generating visitors who reside in and around the area which your funeral home services, which makes optimizing your website with local keywords even more important.

Local Search Term Tracking with Google Analytics

In this section we are going to provide you with step-by-step instructions for using Google Analytics to track your local search terms. It’s a very easy process, but it’s definitely something that you need to take time to learn so that you can understand what the reports are saying, and more importantly, understand what (if any) changes that you need to make to your website based on what the reports are showing. Follow the steps below to find out which keywords are performing best for you. One thing to note, you should wait AT LEAST a month after optimizing your website with new local keywords before using Google Analytics to see how those keywords are performing, and really it won’t be until 3 months post keyword implementation that you’ll want to start making any changes. You need time for the search engines to pick up the new keywords and start associating your website with them.

1. Click “Traffic Sources” on the left sidebar once you have logged into Google Analytics
2. Under “Traffic Sources” you want to click “Sources” > “Search” > “Organic” to get a list of the top performing keywords for your website
3. A list of your top 10 keywords should appear in the main viewing window. You can expand this list to see more than the top 10 by navigating to the bottom of the list and clicking the drop-down menu next to “Rows”. This will allow you to select as many keywords as you’d like to review.
4. The data that you’ll for each keyword is as follows:
   1. Visits – How many people visited your site from a specific keyword
   2. Pages/Visit – How many pages (on average) were viewed by each person who visited your website from that keyword
   3. Average Visit Duration – How long did each person stay on your site
   4. % of New Visits – Of the people who visited your site from a specific keyword, this shows you the percentage of those people who were new to your website (ie. never visited your website previously)
   5. Bounce Rate – This tells you how many people landed on your website, but then left immediately (meaning that they thought they were going to a different website when they landed on yours – you want this number to be low)

As you can probably tell, all of this data can be extremely helpful in determining how your local keywords are performing.

Local Keyword Report Results

What you want to see in your top 10 keywords are those local keywords that you used throughout your funeral home website. If you optimized your website with the keyword phrase “funeral home in Philadelphia” and “funeral home services Bucks County, PA” then you want to see those keywords in the top 10 keywords in terms of driving traffic to your website. That said, simply being in the top 10 in regards to the number of visits that these keywords are generating is not enough. You also want the people who visited your website from those keywords to have visited multiple pages and stayed on the site for over a minute. If you can get your local keywords to produce a lot of visitors, and those visitors are navigating through the website to various pages & staying on the website for a while then you know that you are attracting quality visitors with your local keywords. That’s what you want, quality visitors.

As you monitor your keyword traffic via Google Analytics be sure to keep track of how your keywords are performing. Be sure to give them enough time to actually make an impact. Then simply tweak your keywords until you find the right combination. You’ll know when you found the right combination because all of the things mentioned above as far as driving a lot of traffic, that traffic visiting a lot of pages, and staying on the site for a while will all come into place.

Definitely take the time to get your funeral home website set up on Google Analytics. It’s a free tool and provides you with a ton of insight into how your website is performing.

In order to be a successful business in 2013, no matter what industry you are in, you need to have a sound online marketing strategy. A huge part of that online strategy should involve search engine optimization. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process by which website owners optimize their websites with various terms (keywords and keyword phrases) which relate to the product and/or service that they offer. That said, as more and more companies realize how important it is to optimize their websites so that search engines like Google and Bing find their websites and publish those sites on hopefully page one of their search results, search terms are getting more competitive. In order to stand out from your competitors, a nice wrinkle that you can add to your SEO strategy should be to utilize local search.

What is Local Search?

Local Search is simply the use of “geographic-based keywords”. When people are searching for products and services they are increasingly using terms like “restaurants Philadelphia Pa” or “funeral home Boston Massachusetts”. By adding in the words “Philadelphia Pa” and “Boston Massachusetts” the person is saying that I only want to see companies who have what I need and reside in my local area. If your funeral home doesn’t have any contact information or hasn’t optimized your website with local keywords then your website will not come up in the search results for that individual.

How to Incorporate Local Keywords Into Your Website

There are a lot of different ways to make sure your website comes up in local search results. Here are a few ideas that you might want to consider if you are going to update your funeral homes’ website with local keywords:

• Optimize images on your website with local search terms. You can use Alt Tags and Title tags to input your local keywords. Optimizing images on your website is an underrated way of driving more search traffic to your website.
• Input local search terms in your anchor text throughout your website. Anchor text are the words that you hyperlink a URL to. So if you are on your home page and within the copy of your home page you want to link to your Funeral Services page you might “anchor” your URL to the keyword phrase “funeral home services for Philadelphia” instead of just “funeral home services”.
• Create a Contact Us page and put your address on that webpage.
• Create a footer that shows up on all of your web pages and in your footer be sure to include your physical address.

All of these options are great ways to optimize your website with local search terms. By taking the time to review your website and determine what areas of your website make the most sense to be updated with local search terms I promise that you will start to see an uptick in your traffic. The best part is that you can use free tools like Google Analytics to track how those new search terms are doing in regards to how much new traffic is coming in from the new local search terms that you created. Hmmm, maybe that will be the topic of our next blog post, “How to Use Google Analytics to Track Your Funeral Home Website Traffic”. Sta tuned!

As we continue to look for new ways to educate the funeral home industry around areas such as marketing for funeral home owners, ways to generate additional revenue, etc. we have come up with an idea that we think will become an extremely valuable tool for funeral home owners and funeral directors. Last month the Heritage Coach Company created an online newspaper entitled The Heritage Coach Herald using a new online tool, Paper.li. We wrote about Paper.li last year as it’s a tool that we think funeral home owners and funeral directors can leverage for marketing-related purposes (Create an Online Newspaper About the Funeral Industry with paper.li). The Heritage Coach Herald is a weekly newspaper for funeral owners and funeral directors.

What To Expect in this Funeral Industry Newspaper

Each week a new edition of the Heritage Coach Herald will be published online. We encourage everyone who is associated with the funeral industry to subscribe to receive the newspaper for free each week. Each edition of the newspaper will be packed full of articles from around the web that are specifically related to the funeral industry. Everything from hearse information to marketing techniques that funeral home owners and funeral directors are trying. There will also be links to additional content, as well as, videos all specific to the funeral industry.

Why Should I Subscribe to the Heritage Coach Herald?

The first reason why subscribing to this new online resource for the funeral industry is that it is free and you can unsubscribe at any time. The real reason that you should subscribe is that this new funeral home industry newspaper is going to compile all of the relevant funeral industry related content from around the web on a weekly basis. This means that you do not have to go to multiple sites to get your funeral industry news. Just read the weekly edition of the Heritage Coach Herald and you will have everything you need. We hope you will subscribe today.

Auto mechanics, including hearse and funeral car mechanics, are going back to school to be trained in auto electronics.

It makes a lot of sense when you think about it. New funeral car technologies are turning hearses and coaches into electronic machinery. Some of the latest technologies that are based on electronics and not mechanics include:

• Regenerative braking technologies
• High voltage engines
• New fuel economy packages
• Rearview camera technology
• Voice control
• Auto drive
• GPS navigation
• Lane change sensors

And much more.

These new auto technologies require mechanics who are capable of diagnosing electronic issues and fixing them. Old-fashioned mechanics don’t have that capability, so they are having to go back to school to learn how to work on the new technologies. New mechanics graduating from auto mechanic school today learn about these new technologies while in school.

This is setting up a new dichotomy in the auto service industry, which will likely affect the funeral car service industry as well.

In the case of rearview cameras, they are being installed in vehicles and used as the central brain for all sorts of in-car digital technologies. If anything electronic goes out on your funeral car and the problem is in the rearview camera, then your mechanic or service department will need to know how to diagnose the problem and fix it.

Technology is even changing how funeral car repairs are being done.

What will the next incarnation of the funeral car look like? Authors William Mitchell, Christopher Borroni-Bird, and Lawrence Burns believe they know. A new book describes what they call the “mobility internet,” and the implications for the funeral car business are incredible.

For starters, this trio are suggesting that all cars, funeral hearses included, will be driven electrically but be electronically controlled. Translation: That means they’ll have a battery that needs charging, but the inside mechanisms of the vehicles themselves will be electronic.

Another idea being floated about by these authors is technology that allows vehicles on the road to communicate between themselves and the surrounding infrastructure. You’ll be able to see traffic ahead of you, say, between the funeral home and the cemetery, and pick alternate routes if you have to.

One implication of the interconnected infrastructure is something they call a “clean energy grid.” A reduction in auto emissions plus the entire transportation ecosystem being driven by the internet.

Then, there’s the idea of dynamic pricing for markets such as parking, roads, electricity, etc. Imagine your funeral customers being able to reserve their parking spaces at your funeral home before they arrive. You can have assigned parking spaces for the cars joining the procession after the service and those that won’t be going to the cemetery service. And you can have electric battery chargers as an added service.

There’s no telling how the mobility internet might affect the overall funeral business and your ability to manage your funeral car fleet, but if the vision of these authors is any indication, it will be a wild ride.

In-car technologies are abounding. And funeral cars aren’t being left out. A recent article highlights 10 emerging auto technologies that almost every auto maker is adding to factory roll outs and that funeral companies can look forward to as well.

Some of the technologies are ubiquitous while others may not seem necessary inside a funeral car. Still, these are awesome technologies. Take a look:

1. Bluetooth – We know you still get calls on your cell phone while driving. With Bluetooth technology, you can take care of business hands-free.
2. USB Ports – You and your passengers can plug in their cell phones, as well as other devices, making their short ride in your funeral cars more comfortable.
3. Voice Technology – If you need to use GPS navigation or other in-dash technology while driving, voice commands make it safer.
4. Heads-up Displays – So you’re looking for that cemetery? Training a new driver? You can look out your windshield and get directions on where to turn.
5. Rearview Cameras – This technology alone is worth installing on your funeral cars.
6. Restaurant Recommendations – What do you do after the service? You have to eat, and we know that you and your staff stop at your favorite restaurant on the way back to your office. Many cars are now coming equipped with restaurant recommendations and reviews. You can reserve your seats right from your dashboard.

These are just a few of the technologies coming to a funeral car in your fleet soon. Curious about any of them? Talk to your service dealer to see if you can have any of these technologies installed in your funeral cars.

The rearview camera has been declared the auto technology of the year for 2013. All the auto manufacturers are incorporating this new technology, and you might think that your funeral car fleet doesn’t need it, but think again.

Rearview cameras do more than just show drivers what’s behind them. Auto makers are also tying all the other digital technologies into them for a complete driver experience.

For instance, adaptive cruise control and automatic headlights are two emerging technologies that are being incorporated into and controlled by rearview cameras. Other new technologies being added to the rearview camera control group include:

• Intelligent high beams
• Forward-collision warning systems
• Blind spot monitoring
• Lane departure alert

It turns out that the rearview camera is being used as a controlling mechanism for other useful technologies, all of which can benefit funeral car drivers. That’s why you might ask your funeral car dealer to install a rearview camera on your next fleet addition.

Rearview cameras have been in use in automobiles since 1956 when the first camera was installed in a Buick Centurion Motoroma. The AARP has started recommending rearview cameras for senior drivers due to its implications for safety and security. I highly recommend it for funeral directors and funeral car fleets as well.

Parents are now using GPS tracking to teach their teens to be better drivers. But the good news for funeral directors is you can use the same technology to teach your funeral car and hearse drivers to become better drivers.

Many insurance companies offer incentives to the insured just for installing GPS tracking on their vehicles. If you ask your insurance company about their policy and they provide such discounts, why not take advantage of the opportunity and add the GPS tracking devices to your funeral cars? You can then use it to help your funeral car drivers improve their skills.

GPS tracking comes in many formats. Some tracking devices are installed on smartphones. Others are installed directly into the vehicle and even provide reporting and feedback via Bluetooth or Internet-based technologies.

Such technology can be a great opportunity to help your staff become more proficient and safe drivers. That in turn will reduce your insurance premiums. But I think we can all agree that having funeral car drivers fully trained on safe driving practices benefits us all. So improve your funeral fleet with GPS tracking, help create safer drivers, and lower your insurance premiums – all in one move. Contact your funeral car dealer today and ask about GPS tracking.

For the longest time, funeral directors got excited when they test drove a hearse or funeral car with wig wag headlights, but it’s been a long time since there have been real innovation to headlights in funeral cars. Until now.

We could talk about LED technology, but that would be slightly boring. After all, light-emitting diodes have been used in lighting for a few short years now. When LED headlights first hit the market, they were truly an innovation worth writing home about – even in funeral cars. But it does get better.

And what’s better than LED wig wag headlights? How about adaptive headlights?

What Are Adaptive Headlights?

Adaptive headlights are headlights that autocorrect to match the lighting needs of the driving situation. For instance, if you are carrying a casket over several miles and find yourself driving at night, when you turn onto a dark road your headlights could become brighter. They will dim when you hit the well-lit city streets.

Another way adaptive headlights can help your funeral car fleet is in the direction of your headlights. Instead of pointing toward the side of the road as traditional headlights do, adaptive headlights point directly at the road in front of you. Then, when your funeral cars are confronted with oncoming traffic, they will point slightly down toward the road to prevent from blinding other drivers.

This is a great time for funeral car technology, and that includes headlight improvements. The next time you consider buying a new funeral car, ask about adaptive headlighting.

Last month we wrote about the idea of converting your funeral home into a safe place for trick-or-treating. This month we are going to keep our focus on the upcoming Halloween holiday since it provides such a great marketing opportunity for funeral homes and talk about helping out in your local community on Halloween night. Halloween is a fun night for the local community. Parents, children, and even neighbors who’s kids have long ago grown up love Halloween. It’s a night that everyone can find that inner child again, if only for a short moment. That said, on Halloween night there are plenty of parents who are not able to give their children the full experience of going trick-or-treating. This could be for a number of reasons, such as the neighborhood they live in isn’t conducive to going door to door OR maybe single parents have to work so their kids cannot enjoy Halloween. Whatever the reason is, what it presents is an opportunity for creative funeral home owners and funeral directors to help out the local community, while getting their name out to their prospects. In this article we are going to cover a few ways that you can get your funeral home involved in the local community to help out on Halloween night.

Funeral Home Owners Drive the Carpool on Halloween

As mentioned above, some families live in areas that are not conducive to trick-or-treating. Some live off of main roads where there are no sidewalks. Others live in areas where there are no streetlights, thus it becomes a little dangerous for kids walking around trick-or-treating. Funeral Home Owners and Funeral Directors can operate a carpool whereby they pick local neighborhood kids up at predetermined areas (bus stops make for good pick up and drop-off zones) and at predetermined times. They can then drive them to a neighborhood that is perfect for trick-or-treating. While kids are off trick-or-treating you can walk the streets to keep an eye on the kids. You can then let kids know to meet back up at the van at a certain time so that you can take them to the drop-off location. Most kids who are not with parents for trick-or-treating have cell phones these days, so you can have them set an alarm and collect their phone numbers before you let them go trick-or-treating. This way you know they will be back on time and for those who are not, you can call them. If you can set up 4 or 5 of these carpool vans it would really help out a lot of parents who want to give their children the fun of trick-or-treating on Halloween night.

Funeral Homes Participate in Neighborhood Watch

As many of you know, we are living in a world that pumps fear every minute of every day. No longer can we assume that our children can safely walk the streets on Halloween night without first taking some precautions. It’s unfortunate, but this is our reality. So instead of having a community of worried parents, why not insert yourself to set up and operate a local neighborhood watch on Halloween night. Funeral Home Owners and Funeral Directors, along with any volunteers can walk the streets of their local community on Halloween night in order to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity. Let parents know you will be doing this. Provide anyone who wants it with your cell phone number and then on Halloween night you can set up a strategic coverage plan so that all areas of your local community are covered by at least two individuals. This way everyone in your local community can feel safe that their children are being watched over by responsible adults.

Funeral Home Owners Take Kids Trick-or-Treating

Lastly, you can actually take kids who’s parents cannot, trick-or-treating. You can work with parents over the next few weeks to set up a group of kids with one adult from the funeral home. Those adults can then meet up at a predetermined area and at a predetermined time to pick up the children. Once everyone has arrived you can start walking the streets with your group of children going door to door trick-or-treating. This would be a HUGE help to parents who cannot take their kids out on Halloween night.

Funeral Home Marketing Made Easy on Halloween

As you can see, all three of these ideas are great ways to provide value to your local community, but also for getting your name out there to your prospective customers. By getting your funeral home involved in the local community your brand will resonate with your neighbors. Funerals are not a fun thing, thus people pick funeral homes that they trust and preferably have a relationship with. By you getting out in the local community you are making a name for your funeral home. When it comes time to pick which funeral home to go with, your community will pick yours over your competitors because they know you, you have helped them in the past, and they trust you. Halloween is a great opportunity for you to show your community that you care.