Tribute Technology recently published Benchmarking the Modern Obituary: Traffic, Engagement and Industry Threats. This analysis of more than 1 billion obituary sessions shows how online obituaries fuel funeral home growth, where traffic originates, and how third-party aggregators divert audiences and purchases away from local firms.
“Obituaries are the entry point to the modern funeral home,” said Craig Greenseid, CEO of Tribute Technology. “This study gives owners the data to protect that entry point so families, condolences, brand awareness and commerce stay with the firm that served them.”
Obituaries, which attract more than 3.5 billion visits annually, are the top driver of funeral home website traffic. In fact, obituary pages draw five times more visits than all other pages. Aligning with the primary preneed decision-maker demographic, 60% of visitors are women above the age of 50, and most live within 25 miles of the funeral home.
The study shows that speed and substance matter when it comes to obituaries. Obituaries posted within two days of the death drive 30% more visits and engagements, while those with 500 or more words generate twice as many visits and engagements.
The study confirms that 75% of obituary visits come from organic search or social sharing, which underscores the importance of SEO-first design in regard to obituaries. It helps ensure families land on the funeral home site rather than aggregator sites, which divert traffic and dollars. Funeral homes lose up to 260 sessions per obituary this way.
Although artificial intelligence assistants, such as ChatGPT, are growing in popularity, the study notes that Google Search still dominates with 150 billion monthly visits compared to ChatGPT’s four billion.
Finally, the report details the decline of print obituaries and the growth of digital memorialization. Digital postings now account for 65% of death notices.
In other news, ObituaryShare.com has partnered with Tribute Technology to make it easier for funeral homes to share obituaries online and connect with their communities. Through this new partnership, funeral homes with a Tribute Technology website can now link directly to ObituaryShare. The integration lets staff automatically post obituaries to Facebook and other social channels with no additional steps or technical work. Each post leads readers back to the funeral home’s website, helping more families find services, send flowers and show support.
The connection between the two platforms is simple to set up and available now for Tribute Technology customers. Those who activate the feature also will receive special partnership pricing on ObituaryShare services. TributeTech.com; ObituaryShare.com