How to Design a Funeral Home Website
When it comes to designing a funeral home website, there are a few things you need to take into account.
First and foremost, your website needs to be professional and respectful. You don't want people browsing your site and feeling like its content is off-color.
Rather, your site should be clean, engaging, and have all the necessary information so families can easily get in touch with you for funeral services.
In this blog post, we will discuss how to design a funeral home website that is both respectful and useful!
Steps to Making a Funeral Home Website
Step 1 - Choose Your Domain Name and Hosting
Your domain name is your funeral home's website address on the internet. It's how people will find you online, so it's important to choose a name that is both easy to remember and relevant to your business.
You can simply name your website after your funeral home, or get creative and add a geographic keyword that describes what you do. For example, "Raleigh Funerals" or "Jacksonville Cremations."
Personally, we recommend sticking to the name of your business and using that as your domain name. It's simpler and easier to remember for your clients.
There are a few things you need to take into account when choosing your domain name:
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Make it easy to spell and pronounce
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Keep it short
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Use keywords that people will use to search for you
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Avoid using numbers or hyphens
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Choose a common top-level domain like .com, .net, and so on.
Once you've chosen your domain name, you need to find a hosting company. This is where your website will be stored and accessed from the internet.
Hosting companies usually offer different packages with different features and price points, so it's important to do your research and find one that fits your needs.
A few things to look for when choosing a hosting company:
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Customer support. You want a company that is responsive and helpful when you need them.
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Uptime guarantee. Uptime is the percentage of time that your website is up and running. Most companies guarantee 99% uptime, which means your site will only be down for about an hour each month.
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Scalability. As your funeral home website grows, you'll need a hosting company that can grow with you. Make sure the company you choose offers plans that allow for more bandwidth and storage as your needs increase.
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Security. Your hosting company should offer security features like SSL certificates and backups to keep your site safe.
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Pricing. Of course, you'll need to consider your budget when choosing a hosting company. But don't just go with the cheapest option - make sure you're getting a good value for your money.
Now that you've chosen your domain name and hosting company, it's time to move on to the next step.
Step 2 - Decide on its purpose
Let us explain what we mean by this.
You need to determine the purpose of your website, as in; is it purely informational, or do you want it to have additional functions?
Do you want people to just see your list of services, prices, and contact information, or do you want to provide a space for people to leave condolences?
Perhaps you want a combination of both!
It's important to think about this before moving on to the design process, as it will help you determine what features and pages your website will need.
If you want to offer additional functions, like online condolences, you'll need to find a funeral home website builder that offers these features.
Some common features that funeral home websites offer are:
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Online condolences
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Obituary listings
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Live funeral streaming (for family members living abroad)
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Virtual funeral planning
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Grief resources
Once you know what purpose your website will serve, you can move on to the next step.
Step 3 - Funeral home website development
Now that you know what features and pages you need, it's time to choose a website builder.
There are a few things you should take into account when making your decision:
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Ease of use. You should be able to create and edit your website without any difficulty.
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Functionality. The website builder you choose should have all the features and pages you need.
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Price. You'll need to find a funeral home website builder that fits your budget.
Some common website creators for beginners include WordPress, Wix, and Weebly.
Once you've found the perfect funeral home website builder, it's time to start creating your website!
Step 4 - Design it!
Designing your funeral home website can be both fun and challenging. You'll want to consider the overall look and feel of your site, as well as the specific content that you'll be including.
Some things to think about as you're designing your funeral home website:
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What colors do you want to use? Try to keep the colours that are in your funeral home logo.
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What fonts will you use? You'll want to choose fonts that are easy to read and professional-looking.
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What photos and illustrations will you use? Stock photos, or ones that you take yourself?
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How will you lay out the content on each page? Will you use sidebars, or keep things more centered?
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What kind of navigation will you use? A simple menu bar at the top of each page, or something more creative?
These are just a few of the things that you'll want to think about as you're designing your funeral home website. Take your time, and don't be afraid to experiment until you find a design that you love.
Step 5 - Optimize it
Once you've got the design of your funeral home website finalized, it's time to start thinking about optimization.
By optimization, we mean Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This is the process of making sure that your funeral home website appears as high as possible in search engine results pages (SERPs), like Google, when someone searches for keywords related to your business.
So, if you own a funeral home business in Frisco, Texas, you'll want to optimize your site for the keyword "funeral home Frisco TX" and variations of that.
There are a number of ways to optimize your funeral home website for search engines. Some of the most important things that you can do are:
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Include the keyword in your domain name, if possible.
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Use the keyword throughout your site, including in the titles and descriptions of each page
There are a number of things that you can do to optimize your funeral home website for SEO:
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Use keyword-rich titles and descriptions
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Use header tags (H tags) to structure your content
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Use alt tags to describe your images
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Include a blog on your website, and write SEO-friendly blog posts
By following these tips, you can help ensure that your funeral home website appears as high as possible in search engine results pages.
If you're not sure where to start with optimization, or if you just don't have time to regularly updated your site's content and keep track of rankings, consider working with an SEO agency that specializes in funeral home websites.
Conclusion: Designing the Best Funeral Home Websites
Creating a funeral home website can be a great way to reach more potential customers and grow your business.
By following the steps in this guide, you can design and create a great website for your funeral home that will encourage families to use your funeral services.
If you need help building a funeral home website and keeping it optimized for search engines, Funeral Home Media can help. We specialize in creating beautiful, user-friendly funeral home websites that are designed to rank well in search engines.
Contact us today to learn more!