TRIBUTE INSURANCE ASSIGNMENTS
Life insurance assignments, now easier than ever before. Combined, our insurance team has more than 63 years of experience. We know the requirements of more than 300 insurance companies, so we can process claims efficiently and accurately and fund your funeral home in as little as 24 hours. C A L L T O D AY F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N A B O U T TRIBUTE INSURANCE ASSIGNMENTS!
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ISSUE 8
Table of Contents
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Why Your Funeral Home Website Isn’t Just About How It Looks It’s important for your funeral home’s website to look nice. But it also should be user-friendly.
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Five Things Hurting Your Funeral Home Website’s Mobile Friendliness There are many factors that contribute to your website’s mobilefriendliness.
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Top Website Design Mistakes to Watch Out For These top website design mistakes may be hurting your website’s traffic.
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The Benefits of Using a Professional Website Provider By using a professional website provider, your website will have the latest trends and features.
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Eight Things Hurting Your Funeral Home Website’s SEO Many things can affect your search engine results page ranking. Here are a few to watch out for.
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Why Your Funeral Home Needs a Secure Website with an SSL Certificate To protect your client families’ information, you should have a secure website with an SSL certificate.
F E AT U R E A R T I C L E
Elevating the Online Obituary Experience for Families Our designers have worked hard to create an online obituary that lets families tell their loved one’s story in meaningful ways. What they’ve created is a beautiful, functional, and modern yet familiar online obituary experience.
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Employee Features Meet two members of our Frazer family — Sam and Ashley — and see what they have to say about the resources at Frazer Consultants.
Cyber Security and Your Funeral Home There are precautions your funeral home can take to protect yourself online.
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How Often Should You Update Your Website? If your funeral home’s website isn’t mobile-friendly or easy to use, it may be time to update it.
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Your Funeral Home Needs a Website Even If You Have No Competitors A good website benefits your families and makes your funeral home more credible.
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Why Families Shouldn’t Have to Pay to Access Memories of Loved Ones With social Tribute Walls, families have access to their loved one’s memories forever.
Letter from the Editor Dear readers, Welcome to The Meaningful Funeral magazine, an exclusive publication by Frazer Consultants. Our goal with this magazine is to serve as a resource for your funeral home and help you learn new skills, keep up with funeral trends, and serve your current client families in more meaningful ways. This issue covers something near and dear to our hearts here at Frazer — websites. There have been so many new website trends and new best practices in the last year, and we want to be sure that you’re up-to-date on all of it. In particular, most websites now are focusing more on security. As hackers become more advanced, our security measures have to evolve so that we can keep our data safe. Google and other search engines now rank more secure sites higher in their search results, and browsers are beginning to alert users when a site isn’t secure. In this issue, we’ll talk more about how to protect your data online, as well as other trends in terms of website design and development. We hope you find these tips helpful! Want to read The Meaningful Funeral on the go? Every issue is available for free on our website, all you have to do is visit frazerconsultants.com/meaningful and click “Resources” at the top of the page. I hope that you enjoy reading this issue of The Meaningful Funeral, and I look forward to hearing your feedback. If you have any suggestions for future magazine content, we would love to hear them — just email us at marketing@frazerconsultants.com. And if you really love our content, visit frazerconsultants.com/meaningful and sign up for our newsletter to have fresh content and funeral news delivered to your inbox every week!
M AT T F R A Z E R P R E S I D E N T, F R A Z E R C O N S U LTA N T S
N E W F E AT U R E : RESPONSIVE OBITUARIES
Honoring lives on every device. Making our social Tribute Walls more mobile-focused allows families to honor their loved ones no matter where they are — with photos, messages, virtual candles, flower orders, crowdfunding donations, and so much more. C A L L T O D AY F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N !
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Why Your Funeral Home Website Isn’t Just About How It Looks Imagine this scenario. You’ve recently purchased a fixer-upper home that needs some renovations. To start, you want to tackle redesigning the cramped and outdated kitchen. When seeking professional help, you’d most likely reach out to an interior designer. Because not only do you want a beautifully-decorated kitchen, you also need it to be functional. While an interior decorator focuses on making the space look nice, an interior designer makes the space more functional and efficient in addition to looking nice.
At Frazer Consultants, we design our websites to be both beautiful and functional. We take the time to build and design our websites so they work for both your funeral home and your client families. Let’s discuss some key components of a beautiful, yet functional website.
The same goes for your funeral home’s website. It’s important that it looks nice, but if it isn’t user-friendly, it’s defeating the whole purpose of a website. It should be easy to use so families can find information, make payments, and complete other tasks all with the click of a mouse or tap of a finger.
The look and functionality of your website go hand-in-hand. A dull and unappealing, yet informational website is no better than a beautifully-designed website that lacks functionality. No one is going to take the time to search through an unappealing website for information. Just like no one is going to spend
APPEALING AND FUNCTIONAL DESIGN
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time on a beautifully-designed website that’s confusing to navigate or lacks the information and tools they need. If your website doesn’t look nice, your funeral home’s credibility also might take a hit. A poorly-designed website can lead potential client families to believe that you’re not a credible business. According to Blue Corona, 48% of people said website design is the number one factor in deciding whether or not a business is credible. Your website also should be easy to navigate. If people can’t easily and quickly find information, they’ll go elsewhere. After all, the information they’re seeking is the reason they’re on your website in the first place. M O B I L E - F R I E N D LY D E S I G N
The mobile friendliness of your website contributes to both the look and functionality of your website. If your website isn’t responsive and doesn’t look nice on all types of devices, it can be a turnoff to users. According to socPub, 57% of mobile users won’t recommend a business if it has a poorly-designed website on mobile devices. Frazer Consultants offers responsive websites that look beautiful and adapt to all types of devices, whether it’s a phone, tablet, or desktop computer. If your website isn’t responsive, it creates both an unappealing and dysfunctional experience for a mobile user. And with 77% of Americans owning smartphones per the Pew Research Center, you can expect many of your potential client families to find your site via mobile searches.
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FA M I LY- FAV O R I T E F E AT U R E S
Your website isn’t just about how it looks; it’s about the valuable content and resources it provides. It doesn’t have to be just for viewing obituaries and funeral service information. By providing more features and services, it creates a more valuable experience for your families. And you can offer these helpful resources all in one place: your funeral home’s appealing and functional website. Frazer-powered websites have innovative features for your firm and the families you serve without any additional setup costs. With our all-in-one payment platform, Tribute Pay, whether it’s financing, crowdfunding, life insurance assignments, or another payment method, families can make and pay for funeral arrangements directly on your website. With Tribute Wall, your website becomes a virtual scrapbook of memories for families. It provides families with a permanent online tribute for their loved one. And our Tribute Store lets your families quickly and easily place flower orders directly from their loved one’s Tribute Wall. There’s also our text directions feature, where families can have directions to their loved one’s service location sent directly to their phones. And with our 365 Days of Healing email subscription, families can sign up directly on your website to help them throughout their grief journey. T O R E A D M O R E , V I S I T:
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Five Things Hurting Your Funeral Home Website’s Mobile Friendliness Is your funeral home’s website providing a user-friendly mobile experience? According to a recent Hitwise report, about 60% of searches are from mobile devices, so it’s more important than ever to have a mobile-friendly website. There are a lot of factors that contribute to your website’s mobile friendliness, but these five things may be hurting it. Luckily, they’re easy for you to fix. 0 1 — S LO W I N T E R N E T S P E E D
Like how internet speed can hurt your SEO, it also can hurt your mobile friendliness. If your mobile site takes a long time to load, then no one will take the time to wait. On mobile devices, people are looking to get information quickly, and they’ll go elsewhere if your funeral home’s website can’t do that. There are many factors that can affect your website speed, such as large images and video files. But another contributing factor may be your website host. You should always use a reliable website host, so you can ensure your website loads quickly for your users. 02 — POOR USER EXPERIENCE
The user experience is important when viewing a website on any device, but especially on mobile. If users can’t locate the most important information on your mobile website, then it makes for a poor user experience.
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Users shouldn’t have to struggle to find information, as they’ll look elsewhere to find their answers. You should have a user-friendly navigation menu and a search bar that’s easy to locate and not hidden away.
them to find it and enter their information. It’s frustrating for them if they can’t easily enter their information from a mobile device, and then your funeral home is missing out on a possible new lead.
03 — SPELLING AND GRAMMAR ERRORS
0 5 — N O N - M O B I L E - F R I E N D LY D E S I G N
Spelling and grammar errors hurt your mobile friendliness, SEO, and overall make your business look sloppy and untrustworthy. It also can lead to miscommunication if it’s a major error such as a mistyped price or other information about a product or service your funeral home offers.
If users have to pinch and drag your website around on their mobile device to view everything, then it isn’t a mobile-friendly design. A responsive website adapts to any device users are viewing your website on, whether it’s a desktop computer, phone, or tablet. This makes it easy for them to navigate and locate the information they’re seeking.
Make sure to fix any errors and have multiple people read through your website’s content. You can download Grammarly or another spellchecking tool to check for any errors. 0 4 — H I D D E N C TA S
Your CTAs — calls to action — shouldn’t be hidden away. These are the actions you want your potential client families to complete, such as entering their email to download a document or filling out a form to request information. If someone’s interested in the information you’re offering, you should make it easy for
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HOW TO FIX THESE PROBLEMS
Technology is only going to keep evolving, so if your funeral home doesn’t have a userfriendly mobile website, you’re behind. But with a reliable website provider, you can have a website design with an excellent user experience on all devices. Frazer Consultants has responsive website designs that are easy to view and navigate on any device. T O R E A D M O R E , V I S I T:
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FRAZER WEBSITES
Websites that are beautiful on every screen. Frazer offers responsive website design, which means your funeral home’s website responds to every screen it’s viewed on. Whether it’s a mobile phone, tablet, or desktop, you can be sure your site will be both functional and beautiful. C A L L T O R E Q U E S T A F R E E D E M O N S T R AT I O N T O D AY !
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Top Website Design Mistakes to Watch Out For Today’s families are more web-savvy. They want a website that’s both beautiful and usable. That means even a subtle mistake that impacts a website’s usability or aesthetic can be off-putting. And these mistakes, no matter how small, can cause your families to look elsewhere. These top website design mistakes may be hurting your funeral home website’s traffic. U N E X P E C T E D L O C AT I O N S F O R C O N T E N T
You might have some great, informative content on your website. But it won’t matter if families can’t find it. And if families can’t find what they are looking for, they’ll search elsewhere. For example, let’s say a person wants to learn more about the different personalization services you offer. But they can’t easily find that information directly on your homepage. Instead, they have to search through a layer of different menus or click several links to get to what they want to know. They’ll eventually get frustrated and search another site.
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Your website’s structure — or how the individual subpages of your website are linked to one another and how a user navigates through them — impacts both SEO ranking and site traffic. So what does having good site structure mean? You want to start by thinking like your families. What are they visiting your site for? Your menus and site structure should be laid out in a way that makes sense to them and their search needs. T O O M U C H I N F O R M AT I O N O N A S I N G L E PA G E
Another possible problem is having too much information. You’ve probably heard that a goldfish has an average attention span of nine seconds. But a human loses focus after only eight. Having website pages look like a college term paper, with paragraphs that go on forever, is another design mistake that costs you traffic. Don’t overwhelm families with information. For example, if you have a page titled Services, and it lists every single service you offer including pricing options, memorial options, veteran service options, and so on, then consider splitting it up into multiple pages with related links to each page. R E LY I N G O N A F R E E W E B S I T E P L AT F O R M
Everyone likes free things. But the adage “You get what you pay for.” is all too true. Some common problems of a free website platform include extremely slow websites, hidden charges, and locking down your data. This is because the providers put hundreds of the websites on the same server, which is bad for SEO and site speed. And sometimes free doesn’t always mean free. Free website providers might roll out new features, but
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usually at a price. If you ever decide to move your website somewhere else, they might make it difficult by not offering tools to migrate your site content elsewhere. NOT USING RESPONSIVE DESIGN
Responsive design is now the standard of all website design. And for good reason. It makes your website work — and look good — on any device. Mobile searches now account for more than half of all website traffic. Having a website that’s easy to navigate and use on any device means you’ll retain and gain mobile traffic. Having a responsive site also provides a seamless user experience. A family can search from a smartphone, tablet, or desktop, and still get the same experience from visiting your funeral home’s website. According to an article in Forbes, “This is by far one of the greatest benefits of having a responsive website. Unresponsive websites usually distort the way your website appears on devices like mobile, and tablet…” Having one unified look across all devices increases a family’s trust with your brand and helps your funeral home’s website look more professional and polished. In addition to the above, a responsive site gives a boost to your search engine rankings. Google recommends responsive sites as a best practice and rewards websites that are responsive. Which could mean your website starts appearing above your competitors in the search results. T O R E A D M O R E , V I S I T:
frazerconsultants.com/meaningful
T R I B U T E LOA N S
Offer the flexibility your families need with Tribute Loans. With financing, families can afford to give their loved ones the send-off they deserve. Offering financing directly on your website means one more service you offer families, and it also means your funeral home gets paid up front. C A L L T O R E Q U E S T A F R E E D E M O N S T R AT I O N O F T R I B U T E L O A N S T O D AY !
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The Benefits of Using a Professional Website Provider Professionals bring more than experience. They bring value. Look at it this way — you could do your own taxes. But for a small fee, you could also hire a tax professional. Not only could the professional help you save money when filing, they also save you the time and stress involved.
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It’s the same when considering hiring any sort of professional. And it’s especially true when it comes to hiring a professional website provider. So what exactly are the benefits of using a professional website provider?
form options, including contact forms, online planners, testimonial forms, and aftercare/grief support forms. All of which help your funeral home collect contact information so that you can better market to families.
L AT E S T D E S I G N T R E N D S
F R E E F E AT U R E S A N D U P D AT E S
Did you know that things such as effective typography, color schemes, minimalist design, responsiveness, and up-to-date security are all important factors for a website?
Another important benefit of working with a professional website provider is the free updates. Not only does our team of developers roll out regular website updates, we’re also always adding new features. These features help improve the online experience families have when visiting your website.
As a funeral director, you’ve already got your hands full. So staying informed about the latest website design trends is probably not high on your list of things to do. And that’s one obvious benefit of using a professional provider. They make sure your website incorporates the latest website design trends, leaving you one less thing to worry about. BRANDING AND IMAGE
A professional website provider also is adept at branding your funeral home online. Good design should do more than just look nice, it should convey your funeral home’s brand and vision. It should tell the history of your funeral home, highlight your values, and educate families about what you offer. As a professional website provider, our team of designers creates unique websites that reflect who you are as a funeral home. INCREASED TRAFFIC AND BETTER L E A D G E N E R AT I O N
Having a clean, modern website design is important, but if it’s not driving traffic and generating leads, then it’s not working. That’s why we design our sites with SEO best practices. We also offer free features such as social media sharing and blogging tools to help drive even more traffic to your website. On top of that, we also make lead generation easy. Our websites come equipped with several
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For example, Tribute Pay — an all-inclusive funeral payment platform — comes standard with your funeral home’s website. We’re also hard at work updating our responsive obituaries, which will provide families and friends with new ways to interact and memorialize their loved one online. It also ensures obituaries will look good no matter what device a person is viewing the obituary on. These are just some examples of the many features our websites offer. I N T E G R AT I O N
Our websites also seamlessly integrate with the top funeral software companies and answering services. It’s a feature many funeral directors enjoy — as it saves them both time and money. On top of that, our Tribute Center integration allows funeral homes to create meaningful memorial products without the extra work of double data entry. By connecting your Tribute Center account with your Frazer-powered website, you’ll be able to easily push obituary information and memorial products to and from your website and Tribute Center. T O R E A D M O R E , V I S I T:
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Don’t Just Take Our Word for It In our 2018 customer survey, here’s what folks had to say about how using Frazer Consultants as a website provider benefits them.
“There are so many ways that Frazer Consultants have helped our funeral home. For one, we have a unique, one-of-a-kind website. It is extremely informative. We have received so many compliments on how good our website looks. We also have the ability to make personalized DVD and memorial folders for the families that we serve.”
“Better online presence with easyto-navigate website content. Social interaction for the family through the Tribute Wall. Easy integration with our Facebook page. Easy for distant friends and family to order floral arrangements. The addition of crowdfunding to help families we serve as well as those who want to help.”
“I liked the choices for layouts and the ability to use one company for several different products. Now that the Tribute Center is so interactive with all the products and uploading the videos to our website, I would find it very hard to even consider another company.”
“The Frazer products have helped us create a better-looking, more modern site that gives us the ability to serve our families with an appealing look. The Tribute Store has been a tremendous help to us in terms of allowing flower orders to be placed easily and efficiently.”
“Creating a newer, modern website has allowed us to create a better experience for our families. They are able to see beautifully designed obituary pages and have the option of ordering f lowers and see the customized messages left for them.”
“The Frazer powered website created for our firm has increased our presence tenfold. The Tribute Center has set us apart from the competition with the wonderful variety of complimentary items we offer our families. Awesome!!!”
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Eight Things Hurting Your Funeral Home Website’s SEO Is your funeral home’s website being found by potential client families? There are many factors that contribute to your search engine results page (SERP) ranking, but these eight things may be hurting your website’s search engine optimization, or SEO. 0 1 — B A D M E TA D ATA
To put it simply, metadata is the data that describes other data on your website. It refers to things like a title tag and meta description for your website, which are what appears to searchers on a SERP. Having low-quality metadata or no metadata hurts your SEO and makes the user experience more difficult. Make sure to add your own unique metadata to your website. 02 — BAD KEYWORDS
Keywords tell search engines what your content is about. Your website content should have relevant keywords that summarize the information. For keywords, aim to use them a few times within your content, but don’t overstuff your content with them. You want your keyword to sound naturally placed in your content. First, write your content naturally using the keyword. Then, go through a second time and add the keyword additional times if needed, in places where it flows naturally. Keep your potential client families in mind when choosing your keywords. Consider what words and phrases they would use when searching for the topic related to your keyword.
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Also, make sure your keyword isn’t too vague. For example, “funeral register book” is more specific than just “register book” and will avoid any confusion with register books for things like weddings or baby showers. But make sure your keyword isn’t too specific. Keep it to three words or less, so that you don’t prevent yourself from being found in a SERP. 03 — BROKEN LINKS
Check and fix any broken links in your content — whether the URL is misspelled or the page doesn’t exist anymore. These are bad for your SEO and overall user experience if potential customers come across them. There are several tools online that can find the broken links for you and make this an easy fix. Also, if you’ve moved pages around on your website, then you may want to create redirects to let search engines know the page moved. 0 4 — N O N - M O B I L E - F R I E N D LY W E B S I T E
Not having a mobile-friendly website will cause your SERP ranking to take a hit and cause potential client families to look for services elsewhere. Users shouldn’t have to pinch and drag your website around on their mobile device to view everything. Your website needs to respond to all types of devices that people are viewing your website on — from desktop computers to mobile phones and tablets. If your website isn’t responsive, it’s time to find a new website provider. 0 5 — N O S S L C E R T I F I C AT E
Your website should have a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate, which encrypts and protects users’ personal information and online data to ensure a secure connection. It protects information like credit card numbers,
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social security numbers, and other personal information that users may enter on your website to make funeral payments or apply for funeral financing programs. Frazer-powered websites are SSL-secured, so your client families’ information is safe. 0 6 — S LO W W E B S I T E S P E E D
If your website doesn’t load in three seconds or less, then your SERP ranking may be lower. It’s also a turnoff to many potential customers if a website doesn’t load quickly. Some factors that can affect your website speed are large images and video files, such as embedded YouTube videos. You can check your website’s speed with free online tools, such as Pingdom. 0 7 — S PA M C O M M E N T S A N D L I N K S
Spam comments on your blog and links to spam pages can hurt your SEO — even if users don’t click on them. By only linking to reliable sources, monitoring your comments, and only approving those relevant to your content, you can prevent spam from affecting your SERP ranking and site credibility. 08 — SPELLING AND GRAMMAR ERRORS
Although it may seem minor, spelling and grammar errors can damage your SEO. It also affects your funeral home’s brand and makes you look less professional and reliable. Make sure you have multiple people read and edit your website content for errors. Plus, you can install free grammar and spell-checking tools on your computer or mobile device, such as Grammarly, to help make sure you have errorfree content. T O R E A D M O R E , V I S I T:
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TRIBUTE VIDEOS
Easy-to-create cinematic-quality memorial videos for families. With nearly 200 intros and endings, almost 400 licensed songs, 850 high-quality stock video clips, and 500 themes for DVD packaging, you can create a meaningful, completely personalized video for families in minutes. C O N TA C T U S F O R M O R E I N F O , O R V I S I T O U R W E B S I T E TO D O W N LOA D T R I B U T E C E N T E R F O R F R E E !
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Families have always loved the Tribute Wall experience of Frazer Consultants websites, so you might be wondering why we made these updates. After all, why would we fix something that isn’t broken? The main reason we decided to create a responsive obituary experience is because search engines like Google and Bing recognize responsive websites as a best practice. The more responsive your website, the better chances you have of ranking higher on search engine results pages. But beyond that, more and more families are doing a majority of their online browsing from mobile devices. We wanted to make sure their obituary experience was the best it could possibly be, no matter what device they were viewing it on. With all that in mind, we set out to make sure families had a familiar but updated obituary experience. So we researched and designed, tested, redesigned, and retested until we had something that worked well and that families loved interacting with.
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01 — CUSTOMIZABLE HEADER IMAGES
0 3 — C O N V E N I E N T F LO W E R S TO R E
An extensive library of beautiful obituary headers lets you personalize someone’s Tribute Wall to reflect who they are. You now also have the option to upload custom photos, like some of the free stock imagery available online.
Tribute Store makes sending flowers easy and stress-free. Each Tribute Wall has a customized flower experience that ensures flowers go to the correct address for the service or to the family’s home address.
02 — SOCIAL SHARING OPTIONS
04 — CROWDFUNDING
New social sharing buttons allow families to easily share an obituary with friends and family, giving them the opportunity to leave memories on their loved one’s Tribute Wall.
Tribute Crowdfunding lets families donate to memorial funds directly on their loved one’s Tribute Wall, encouraging more interaction and keeping your funeral home in control.
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0 5 — O B I T U A R Y A N D E V E N T D E TA I L S
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The menu bar stays visible while scrolling to make navigating easier. Easily toggle between the social Tribute Wall and the Obituary & Events pages so the information is always easy to find. 0 6 — T E X T/ E M A I L D I R E C T I O N S
Text and email directions send a message to your phone or inbox with GPS directions to a loved one’s funeral service or burial location. 0 7 — N O T I F I C AT I O N S
Family and loved ones can now turn on notifications for their loved one, notifying them of upcoming service events and other important Tribute Wall updates.
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08 — SHARING MEMORIES
An option to share a memory is always easy to find, no matter where they scroll, what tab they’re on, or what device they’re using. This encourages family and friends to leave messages, photos, and other memories. 09 — GRID VIEW
Grid view is a new way to see all of the memories left on a Tribute Wall. Switching between list and grid views on desktop gives users more control over their experience.
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WA N T T O R E A D M O R E ?
Visit our blog to learn more about our responsive obituary design!
frazerconsultants.com/meaningful
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Why Your Funeral Home Needs a Secure Website with an SSL Certificate In 2017, 47% of small businesses reported at least one cyber attack, while 44% of those had two to four cyber attacks, according to the 2018 HISCOX Small Business Cyber Risk Report. Cyber attacks pose a major threat to your funeral home’s website. With families entering their personal information for funeral planning and funeral payments, it’s important to keep their information safe from hackers. So what measures can your funeral home take to protect your client families’ information? One must-have is a secure website with a Secure Sockets Layer certificate. W H AT I S A N S S L C E R T I F I C AT E ?
An SSL — Secure Sockets Layer — certificate encrypts the data sent between your web browser and the server. This protects sensitive information entered online such as credit card information, social security numbers, login credentials, and other personal information.
G I V E Y O U R C L I E N T FA M I L I E S S E C U R I T Y
Having an SSL-secured website provides your client families with a secure connection when entering personal information — whether they’re entering credit card information for a funeral payment or applying for a funeral financing program. Ultimately, you want to build trusting relationships with your families — having a website that they can trust with their personal information is a major part of that. It will help ease their minds when entering personal information on your website.
HTTPS VS. HTTP
Security and trust are especially important for families who are grieving the loss of their loved one and coping with a variety of complex emotions while funeral planning. Having a secure website connection gives them one less thing to stress about.
You may notice http:// or https:// before a website URL address. Even though HTTPS and HTTP are only one letter different, the letter “S” indicates a secure connection. HTTP stands for hypertext transfer protocol, while HTTPS is hypertext transfer protocol secure. By having an SSL certificate, your website URL address begins with HTTPS rather than HTTP.
It’s also a feature that your funeral home can promote to potential client families. They know that they can not only trust your funeral home’s staff with caring for their loved one, but also with protecting their family’s personal information. It provides them with a sense of security when they may be feeling their most vulnerable and insecure.
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B O O S T YO U R W E B S I T E ’ S R A N K I N G
Not only does SSL protect your family’s information, it also improves your website’s search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines like Google prefer HTTPS sites, so having a secure website can help boost your website’s search engine results ranking. If you don’t have a secure website but your competitor down the road does, they may be outranking you on the search engine results page. On Google Chrome, you’ll see the text “Secure” with a green padlock icon or “Not Secure” before a URL address. Soon, Google will make an update that shows the Not Secure text in red along with a red triangle icon. This will make it even more clear to families — even those who aren’t as tech savvy — that the website doesn’t have a secure
connection. They want to make sure that their personal information is protected, so they’ll avoid these Not Secure websites. SECURE FRAZER-POWERED WEBSITES
Frazer-powered websites are protected with SSL, so your funeral home can protect your families’ private information. Whether they’re applying for Tribute Loans or filling out the preplanning form, your staff and families don’t have to worry about whether their information is safe. You can rest assured that the information entered on your website is secure and protected. T O R E A D M O R E , V I S I T:
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Getting to know Frazer Consultants Meet two members of our Frazer family — Sam and Ashley — and see what they have to say about the resources at Frazer Consultants.
the last three years, the marketing department and I have evolved a lot. We’ve grown from a team of two to a team of five, we’ve introduced new and different types of content, and we’ve really gotten to know our audience and refined our voice as a company. But we’re not done — we’re constantly learning and trying new things, and we love when we get feedback and ideas from the funeral directors we serve. W H Y W E D O W H AT W E D O NAME
Sam
Marketing Manager
ROLE
YEARS
Three
W H AT I D O AT F R A Z E R
I lead a team of content creators that are responsible for all of our marketing materials and resources. For a team of five, we produce a lot of different things: The Meaningful Funeral magazine, blogs, email newsletters, media kits, eBooks, user guides, videos, social media posts, and trade publication articles are just some of the many things we create. It’s my job to make sure everything runs smoothly, on time, and that we’re providing the best possible content to our audience. GROWING AND CHANGING
When I first started working here at Frazer Consultants, I was a content writer responsible for creating blogs, eBooks, and copy for brochures and other marketing materials. In
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All of the technology, software, and website solutions we create are designed to make funeral directors’ lives easier and provide families with features that make the worst times in their lives easier. So when we think about the resources we produce, we have the same goal in mind. Funeral directors sacrifice so much to serve families in times of distress and great need, and they deserve all the help they can get. Our goal is to provide as much of that help as we can. W H AT ’ S C O M I N G N E X T ?
Like I mentioned before, we are constantly growing and changing as a department and as a company. We had our first-ever webinar on November 14, 2018, which was approved for CE credits in more than 15 states and provinces. We’re constantly thinking of new resources we can provide to funeral homes, and listening to the feedback we get from funeral directors across the U.S. and Canada. We’re also updating a lot of our old materials to make sure our resources stay up-to-date as the profession changes. We appreciate the hard work that funeral directors do every day, so we are constantly looking for ways to give back.
design the eBooks, social media kits, and The Meaningful Funeral to our brand standards. Photography plays a big role in our brand, so I spend a lot of time curating photos that have a similar look and feel. We always prioritize imagery that feels realistic and doesn’t have that overdone stock photography vibe. THE MEANINGFUL FUNERAL
NAME
Ashley
Graphic Designer
ROLE
YEARS
One
W H AT I D O AT F R A Z E R
I’m the designated marketing designer at Frazer, which means I create both the marketing materials for Frazer and the resources we provide to funeral directors to help them with their social media presence and more. I love my job because I get to work on a range of diverse projects — like creating our Instagram posts, assembling social media kits for funeral homes, helping out with The Meaningful Funeral, and anything else you might see on social media or in your inbox. R E S O U R C E S PA G E
Half of my job can be summed up by looking at the Resources page on our website. Our content writers write the copy, and I work with them to
Our bimonthly print magazine is always fun to work on because it’s a physical product I get to design and then see printed in real life. With so many things going digital these days, it’s nice to have a tangible piece of work that stands out the way our magazine does. It’s also an opportunity for me to get creative with layout and typography, and an excuse to browse other beautiful publications whose design I admire for inspiration. Print design is how I started my career and it makes me happy to see there’s still a need for it despite all the importance placed on digital products. W H Y I L O V E W H AT I D O
As it becomes more and more important for businesses to be engaging online, I think it’s great that Frazer is providing these resources to funeral directors. I think all of us have been positively impacted at one point or another by a funeral director who cared for us and our families in a time of need, and it feels good to be able to give back to them in some way. We know how hard they work every day, so we believe that anything we can do to make their lives easier is worthwhile.
I think all of us have been positively impacted at one point or another by a funeral director who cared for us and our families in a time of need, and it feels good to be able to give back to them in some way.
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Cyber Security and Your Funeral Home With your client families entering personal information on your funeral home’s website, you want to make sure that information doesn’t get into the wrong hands. Even your social media accounts could potentially get hacked if you’re not careful. But by taking some precautions, you can protect your accounts and client families’ information.
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These are some ways to keep your funeral home’s website, social media accounts, and other online accounts and information safe. H AV E A N S S L- S E C U R E D W E B S I T E
An SSL — Secure Sockets Layer — certificate encrypts the data sent between your web server and browser. It protects sensitive information like credit card information, social security numbers, login credentials, and other personal information. Websites that are SSL-secured have HTTPS at the beginning of their URL rather than HTTP. This means that websites with HTTPS have a secure connection. Google also favors websites with HTTPS, so your funeral home’s website will appear higher in the Google search results than funeral home websites that aren’t SSL-secured. That’s why our Frazer-powered websites offer SSL protection. P ROT E C T YO U R S O C I A L M E D I A AC C O U N T S
Make sure that you thoroughly read and understand your funeral home’s social media pages’ privacy and security settings. It also helps to have a designated social media person for your funeral home. If that’s not possible, you can assign people distinct roles to give them limited access. For example, Facebook lets you assign different roles such as administrator and editor, which have different levels of access. Some accounts also have the option of sending a verification code via text or email before granting access. On Facebook, you can sign up for alerts when there’s an unrecognized login attempt.
Other social media best practices to protect your accounts are not to click any suspicious messages or links. These suspicious messages likely have many spelling and grammatical errors. You should always report suspicious activity that you come across. Another best practice is to create strong passwords for your social media accounts — which we’ll talk more about in the next section. C R E AT E S T R O N G PA S S W O R D S
Create strong passwords for all your funeral home’s accounts and change them every few months. Although this may seem excessive, it can help prevent your accounts from being hacked and your information stolen. Also, don’t give them out to too many people and make sure you create different passwords for all of your accounts. Choose passwords that are unique and aren’t easy to guess. By including some unique symbols and both upper and lowercase letters, your password is more secure than simple words or phrases. S E C U R E YO U R C O M P U T E R S
Make sure that you install a security software program on your funeral home’s computers — such as McAfee or Norton — to protect your computers from viruses and hackers. Also, keep your computer and internet browsers up-todate. According to Jessica Koth in The Director article We’ve Been Hacked, these updates may contain important virus protection updates. T O R E A D M O R E , V I S I T:
frazerconsultants.com/meaningful
The Meaningful Funeral | 39
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How Often Should You Update Your Website? There are some facts of life that we all can agree on. You should change your tires around 50,000 miles. You should upgrade to a new mattress about every seven years. But what about a website? How often should you update that? The short answer? It depends. Experts say there aren’t any set timelines you should follow when updating your site. Instead, they say you should ask yourself these questions to see if it’s time for an update. HAS MY FUNERAL HOME CHANGED?
Does your website accurately reflect your funeral home and the services it provides families? One common problem we see is that as a business evolves over time, their website style stays stuck in the last decade. A good website should always accurately reflect your funeral home’s values and services that you provide families. If your funeral home has recently made changes like renovating your facility or moving to a new facility, offering families new services such as green burials or modern memorial products, or offering a flower store for families and friends to conveniently purchase sympathy gifts online, you should consider updating your website to reflect that. I S M Y W E B S I T E M O B I L E - F R I E N D LY ?
This is a question that’s only going to become more important. If your website isn’t mobilefriendly, you should start thinking about updating it as soon as possible. Here’s one of the biggest reasons why. If your funeral home isn’t mobile-friendly, Google
probably won’t show it in the search results. In 2015, Google released its mobile-friendly search ranking algorithm. Basically, Google’s mobile-friendly update gives a big priority to sites that are optimized for mobile devices. Meaning they will almost always appear above non-mobile-friendly sites in the search results. This update is in response to the fact that close to 60% of all searches now come from a mobile device, per a report from Hitwise marketing company. And that number is growing. IS MY WEBSITE EASY TO USE?
User experience (UX) was somewhat of an afterthought in the early days of the internet. Back then, just having a webpage with some basic information about your business was all you needed. As our society has evolved to spend more time on the web, the user experience has become an increasingly important aspect of a good website. Think of it as digital customer service. A user-friendly website is useful, usable, desirable, findable, accessible, and credible. Families should be able to find all the information they need, and it should be easy to use and navigate for people of all ages and abilities on any type of device.
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Just like a modern funeral home, a good website needs modern features. For a funeral home’s website, this includes things like online payment options or social obituaries. A good website also is only good if people can find it on the web. A strong SEO strategy will help keep your site at the top of the rankings. Lastly, a good website should inspire trust between your business and the user. It’s the final step in a great user experience. One of the fastest ways to establish (or lose) trust is through design. One study found that when asked why they didn’t trust a website, 94% of people cited design as the main problem. IS MY WEBSITE DRIVING CONVERSIONS?
Another important question to ask is whether or not your website works for you. A modern website can be a great marketing resource. It can help your staff get new leads and contact information so that they can reach out to more families. If your website is bringing in traffic, but not helping convert the traffic into potential client families, then you should consider updating.
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Things like strategically-placed contact forms and revenue-generating flower stores are great resources to help a website grow your funeral home’s clients. U P D AT E F O R A G O O D F I R S T I M P R E S S I O N
At the end of the day, you should consider upgrading to make the best first impression possible. Little details go a long way in making a positive first impression. A copyright in the footer that says 2004, outdated content, wrong dates, or bad/nonexistent pictures of staff members are all things that can hurt the first impression your website makes. Remember, 81% of people research a local business online before visiting in person. That means they will see your website first before deciding to contact your funeral home. You should update your funeral home website to make sure you’re always making the best first impression possible. T O R E A D M O R E , V I S I T:
frazerconsultants.com/meaningful
A TRIBUTE STORE TESTIMONIAL
Adding the Frazer Flower Network has been one of the best decisions we have made since buying our three funeral homes five years ago. It is so convenient for people to purchase their flowers right from the same site they are viewing the obituary! Offering a convenient service such as online floral ordering also has supported our local florist. Knowing that our small town flower shop gets all the orders has created a wonderful partnership with a fellow family-owned business. This service has exceeded our expectations and we are very happy to respect tradition, yet embrace change!
VERONICA HASKELL H A S K E L L- H O T T F U N E R A L H O M E S PRINCEVILLE, ILLINOIS
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Your Funeral Home Needs a Website Even If You Have No Competitors It’s unheard of these days for a business not to have a website. If potential customers want to know more about a business and its products and services, the first thing they do is search online for information before visiting the business.
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Having a good website can mean families find you first, and it can mean they reach out to you rather than your competitors. And even if your funeral home doesn’t have many local competitors, you should still have a website. Let’s talk about why. A GOOD WEBSITE BENEFITS THOSE OUT OF TOWN
For families who are from out of town and don’t know the area, your website is a valuable resource. If they want to order flowers or get directions to the funeral location, they can do just that. And with the text directions feature on Frazer-powered websites, families can have directions to their loved one’s funeral service sent directly to their phones. Through Frazer’s Tribute Store, families can order flowers directly from their loved one’s Tribute Wall — where they also can view the obituary and leave condolences. This keeps traffic on your website, which is good for your search engine optimization — increasing your website’s search engine results ranking. You can choose the florists you work with, so your local florists benefit as well. The Tribute Store also gives you some extra income, so you can do that lobby renovation or another project you’ve been wanting to tackle. A G O O D W E B S I T E B E N E F I T S Y O U R FA M I L I E S
Having a website opens the door for more ways to give your families the best funeral experience possible. With innovative online features, you can provide families with easy and convenient ways to plan a funeral and grieve. For example, with Frazer-powered websites, families have multiple funeral payment options through Tribute Pay — our all-in-one payment platform. With Tribute Pay, families can use
Tribute Insurance Assignments, Tribute Loans, Tribute Crowdfunding, online credit card processing, or eChecks to fund funeral expenses. Your website also provides a place for families to view and order your memorial products and keepsakes. And families can subscribe to one of our Frazerpowered website’s cutting-edge features — 365 Days of Healing. Your families can receive daily grief emails to help them cope with their loss. At the same time, your funeral home receives email addresses for marketing and further aftercare efforts. A G O O D W E B S I T E M A K E S YO U R F U N E R A L HOME MORE CREDIBLE
Your funeral home is behind the times if you don’t have a website. It may be working for your business now, but as Gen Xers and Millennials age and become your primary customers, they’ll expect you to have a website or they may not consider your funeral home as a credible business. And, as we discussed above, a website provides many benefits that your client families could be missing out on. Your website also is critical to your digital stamp, as discussed by keynote speaker Erik Qualman at the 2018 ICCFA Convention. Your digital stamp has two parts: your digital shadow (what others post) and your digital footprint (what you post). Without a website and other types of online presence like social media, your potential customers are only seeing your digital shadow — which only has others’ opinions about your funeral home. By having a website, you can establish your own brand and take control of your online profile. T O R E A D M O R E , V I S I T:
frazerconsultants.com/meaningful
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Why Families Shouldn’t Have to Pay to Access Memories of Loved Ones Those grieving often share memories of a loved one on their online obituary. It’s a convenient way to organize stories about a loved one and let their legacy live on forever. But imagine that these memories were taken away from the family. Unfortunately, that might be the case if your funeral home uses a third-party obituary hosting site. These sites eventually force families to pay to view their loved one’s online memories. Luckily, there’s a solution that benefits both your funeral home and the families you serve. N E G AT I V E S O F T H I R D - PA R T Y O B I T U A R Y HOSTING SITES
Like we mentioned above, many third-party obituary hosting sites make their online guestbooks inaccessible after a certain amount of time. And to view them, families need to sponsor the site with yearly or permanent sponsorships. Families already lost their loved one; they shouldn’t have their memories taken away too — and they shouldn’t have to pay to view them. Not only do families lose access to their loved one’s online memories, your funeral home is losing valuable website traffic. People viewing a loved one’s obituary on an obituary hosting site may never make it to your funeral home’s website. Obituaries are the easiest way to bring in website traffic and raise awareness about your funeral home; but using an obituary hosting site is costing you website traffic and, ultimately, potential customers.
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However, there’s a solution that keeps traffic on your website and lets families access their loved one’s memories forever. B E N E F I T S O F S O C I A L T R I B U T E WA L L S
With social Tribute Walls, one of many Frazerpowered website features, we don’t take advantage of families and funeral homes the way third-party obituary hosting sites do. Families can share messages, send flowers, leave meaningful symbols, light virtual candles, and — best of all — they can view their loved one’s obituary and shared memories forever. Social Tribute Walls even make things easier for your funeral home, as traffic stays on your website. It also opens the door to other innovative features like Tribute Crowdfunding, where people can donate to a crowdfunding campaign directly on their loved one’s Tribute Wall. Our responsive obituaries make Tribute Walls look beautiful on whatever device families view them from — whether it’s a desktop computer, tablet, or other mobile device. The responsive design adjusts to whatever screen size it’s being viewed on, so families can view memories of their loved one wherever and whenever they need or want to. T O R E A D M O R E , V I S I T:
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FRAZER WEBSITES
Our websites work hard so you don’t have to.
DFUNDING TISEMENT
Frazer-powered websites are more than just beautifully designed — we put thought into every aspect of your site so that your families get the features they need, and we’re constantly adding features at no additional cost to your funeral home. C A L L T O R E Q U E S T A F R E E D E M O N S T R AT I O N T O D AY !
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T R I B U T E PAY
Make it easier to get paid up front. Tribute Pay puts your funeral home back in control of your accounts receivable. Offer credit card payments, financing, insurance assignments, crowdfunding, and electronic checks all in one place — and get paid up front no matter what option families choose. CALL TO REQUEST A FREE D E M O N S T R AT I O N T O D AY !
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