I will go through these 4 Pillars and share lots of live example. Plus I will stay on to answer any of your funeral home website questions.
4 Pillars for Top Google Rankings for Funeral Homes
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Here are John Callaghan’s 4 Critical Attributes
To achieve a page one ranking on Google your website must have the following four critical attributes.
- Structure
- Content
- Links
- Activity
The first attribute, Structure, is basically the same as it has been for the last 10 years. Google will penalize you if your website does not contain certain technical elements. The common acronyms you will hear are Tags, Title, Keywords and Meta Description. Any decent website developer will know how to do this and should definitely not charge you extra just to make your site search engine friendly.
The second element, Content, has been important for years. However, what the search engines look for in your content has changed. In 2010 roughly 80% of all Internet traffic is video. Google likes to reward websites that give people what they want and they will give you bonus points if you have video on your site.
Google likes to see a mix of content. You will need text that is filled with your target keywords (e.g., funeral home Dallas), video that people can watch, and maybe some audio that they can play or download. It takes some work but filling your site with a good mix of content is critical if you are going to make it to page one of any search engine.
The third element, Links, started to become important about three years ago and is extremely important today. What I am referring to is links from another website back to your website, these are called “inbound links”.
About two years ago, Google looked at every inbound link as a vote and the more votes you had the higher they would put you in the rankings. This led to the emergence of unscrupulous website owners who would create thousands of links back to your website for a fee. It’s kind of like paying someone to stuff the ballot box in an election.
It didn’t take Google long to figure out that the “one link equals one vote” concept was too easy rig.
In today’s world the search engines do not view all links as being of equal value. Instead they are looking for you to have links from other popular or authoritative websites. Basically it’s gone from being a democracy to being a popularity contest in which you don’t just need friends…you need the right kind of friends.
The fourth critical attribute that Google is looking for is….Activity.
Google hates boring website that never change. If your site goes unchanged for months or even years, Google will penalize you by lowering your ranking and moving you from page one to page two or even worse.
The great news is that it is extremely easy for a funeral home website to create a steady flow of activity. It’s called….online obituaries and condolences.
Google likes to see two types of Activity. They want your site to change and they want to see your visitors interact with your new content.
Online obits and condolences are the perfect fit for this. You post the obit and people leave condolence messages….instant activity points.
The florist can’t get these points. The directory website can’t get activity points. But you can!The key is that Google needs to be able to technically detect when activity is happening on your site. Unfortunately, many funeral home websites were created with underlying technology that makes it impossible for Google to monitor your activity. You should definitely talk to your website developers about this issue.
