Community News
A round-up of the community news for the funeral home profession. Email us at [email protected] if you have a story to share.
Overcoming loss in the middle of a historic campaign
“Dad?” I pick up, speaking very quietly. “What’s up? I’m taxiing at DCA.” “Matey,” he says. My father is Australian and that is his term of endearment for me and my sister. “I’m calling because Mom is in the hospital. We think it’s just an infection.”
Google is splitting its search index in two – and there will be winners and losers
Google is dividing its index – the almost infinite database of websites it stores for search – into separate mobile and desktop versions. There will be winners and losers in this process. Counter-intuitively, publishers with mobile sites designed specifically to make life easier for smartphone users may suffer.
Funeral Industry Seeks Ways to Stay Relevant
News Corp is a network of leading companies in the worlds of diversified media, news, education, and information services. As more Americans opt for cremations, funeral homes branch into ‘multisensory’ rooms, weddings and upscale services As more Americans choose cremation-often dispensing with the need for caskets, burial plots and dreary rituals-the funeral industry is reinventing itself.
Not just a man’s world: More women becoming funeral directors
When Danielle Andy Belusko was a teenager, she announced to her family that she wanted to become a funeral director. Her parents repeatedly asked if she was certain about her career choice. “They still say, ‘Are you sure this is what you want to do?’
When her best friend died, she used artificial intelligence to keep talking to him
When the engineers had at last finished their work, Eugenia Kuyda opened a console on her laptop and began to type. “Roman,” she wrote. “This is your digital monument.” It had been three months since Roman Mazurenko, Kuyda’s closest friend, had died. Kuyda had spent…
The State of Local SEO & Where to Focus Now
In this article I’m going to address the current state of local SEO in 2016, review some findings from a new data-driven local SEO study, and provide you with some actionable tips to win the local SEO game. If there’s one thing that’s consistent about Google, it’s the fact that it’s always changing.
How to Appear in Google’s Answer Boxes – Whiteboard Friday
Featured snippets are here to stay, and they’re proving to be an important goal in the never-ending quest for rankings. In this Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains the 3 types of featured snippets and how you can best position yourself to grab those coveted spots in the SERPs.
At a Houston museum filled with coffins and hearses, it’s time for ‘Death 101’
Linda Gravelle stared into the hearse. Thirty seconds went by and she lifted her camera, wanting to remember the moment. “Wow,” she whispered. “So beautiful.” But it wasn’t a departed loved one that gripped her attention. It was a small, horse-drawn carriage from 1832 – one of several early-model hearses on display inside a huge brick building in north Houston.
5 Ways Millennials Will Blow Up Funeral Service
I recently wrote about how baby boomers (ages 52-70 in 2016) are changing funeral service by demanding more personalization and value. According to a study of 3,500 baby boomers conducted by McKee Wallwork + Co., 48 percent of study participants said they were dissatisfied with funeral service as a whole and 63 percent reported being…
‘We Built an App’: Keeping Track of Louisiana’s Flood-Tossed Tombs
Around 1,500 graves were disrupted after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, with granite mausoleums floating away like battleships, as Mr. Yennie described it, and coffins scattered for miles. More were disturbed later that year during Rita. It happened again in 2008 during Gustav and Ike.