For funeral directors
Funeral director websites that make the first call feel possible
Families choose a funeral director quickly, at a hard moment, and often from a phone late at night. Your website has to be calm, clear and honest about price, and it has to make picking up the phone to you feel like the natural thing to do.
The number, before anything else
When someone dies at home or in a care home, the family needs to reach a funeral director, sometimes in the middle of the night. They are in no state to read. The phone number should be at the top of every page, dial with one tap, and come with a line making clear that you can be called at any hour.
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Below that, a short page on what to do when someone has died helps more than any sales copy. In England and Wales a death usually has to be registered within five days, and families are often unsure what comes first. Plain, practical guidance with your number beside it builds trust before the first conversation has even happened.
The standardised price list, and a page families can follow
Since 2021, the Competition and Markets Authority has required funeral directors to publish a Standardised Price List, including on their website if they have one. Many sites meet the letter of that with a PDF linked at the bottom of a page. Families looking for costs deserve more: the required list where they can find it, plus a plain explanation of your own options, from direct cremation to a full service, with what each includes and which third-party costs, such as crematorium fees, are added.
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Being open about price is not a weakness for an independent. Many families are anxious about cost and relieved to find it written down, and it spares them opening the conversation with a question they were embarrassed to ask.
Faces, the chapel of rest and the cars
Families are handing over someone they love. They want to see who will care for them and where. Photographs of the team, with names and a line about each, of your premises and chapel of rest, and of the vehicles, tell them more than the words dignity and compassion, which they will already have read on every other site.
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Membership of the NAFD or SAIF belongs on the site too, explained in a sentence, along with the things that reflect how you work: whether you are family owned, how long you have served the area, and the faiths and traditions you regularly arrange funerals for.
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“… He took the vision for my brand, Byte & Batter, and built a premium, high-converting digital storefront entirely from scratch. …”
Funeral notices bring the whole community to your site
Many independents publish funeral notices: the name, the date, time and place of the service, and where donations should go. Friends, neighbours and former colleagues look these pages up, and they are the same people who may one day need a funeral director themselves. A notices page that is easy to update, quick to load and respectful in design serves the family you are working with and introduces you to many more.
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Each notice should be written with the family's agreement and removed or archived when they wish. If you use an online donation service, link to the right page from the notice rather than leaving mourners to search for it.
Funeral plans since the FCA took over
Pre-paid funeral plans have been regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority since July 2022. If you offer plans, you are usually doing so on behalf of an authorised provider, and what your website says about them is covered by the rules on financial promotions. In practice that means using wording your provider has approved rather than improvising claims about savings or guarantees.
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Handled properly, a plans page answers real questions for people planning ahead, and it is the one part of a funeral website read mostly by people who are not grieving. Keep it apart from the pages for families who need you now, so neither has to read what was written for the other.
Being found, with restraint
Most families look for a funeral director near where the person lived, and the map results do much of the choosing. A complete Google Business Profile, with accurate hours, the out-of-hours number, photos and replies to reviews, matters more here than in almost any other trade. Reviews from families are often long and personal, and quoting a few on the site, with permission, speaks to the next family in a way you cannot.
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Paid search needs a light touch. Searches for direct cremation are contested by national providers with large budgets, and an independent rarely wins on price alone. Where adverts make sense, keep them local and plain, send them to a calm page, and track calls. Ongoing care keeps the price list, team and notices current, which for a funeral director is not a detail.
What it costs
From £1,400, one-off.
That is the whole Growth Website™ rebuild for a funeral director’s business, up to 6 pages. It covers the audit, rewriting how you explain the work, design, build, the conversion and local search groundwork, tracking, speed and launch. It is about 14 working days from agreed direction to launch, and you own it outright.
Growth Care™ is optional: £149 a month. Cancel any time, with a month’s notice. Every price is fixed and published, so you know the cost before you speak to us.
In our clients’ words
What our clients say.
Questions
The ones that come up.
Do funeral directors have to publish prices on their website?
Yes. Under the Competition and Markets Authority order that took effect in 2021, funeral directors must display a Standardised Price List, including on their website if they have one. It sets out a standard set of items and prices so families can compare firms. Many also publish their own options in plainer language, which helps families understand what the standard list means for them.
Should a funeral website have an online enquiry form, or only a phone number?
A funeral website should offer both, with the phone number first. Many families want to speak to someone straight away. Others, especially late at night, would rather write a few lines and be called in the morning. A short, gentle form with a choice of how and when to be contacted gives them that option, without asking for detail they are not yet ready to give.
Is it appropriate for a funeral director to advertise on Google?
Advertising on Google can be appropriate for a funeral director, if it is done with restraint. Local adverts that name your town, show your phone number and lead to a calm page about your services are a reasonable way to be visible when a family is searching. Avoid anything that reads as a promotion or special offer, and track calls so you know whether the advertising is actually helping families reach you.
Should we publish funeral notices on our website?
Funeral notices are worth publishing if the families you serve want them. Notices help mourners find the date, time and place of a service and where to send donations, and they bring local people to your site who would otherwise never see it. Publish only with the family's consent, keep the page simple and fast to load, and archive or remove each notice when the family asks.
How can an independent funeral director show its independence without criticising anyone?
An independent funeral director can let the evidence speak. Photographs of your own team, premises and vehicles, a short history in your own words, prices you set yourself, and reviews that name your staff make the point without mentioning anyone else. If you are family owned, say so plainly. Families notice the difference between a named local person and a national brand without being told.
Where to next
Also for funeral directors:
Related trades we build for:
Funeral Director websites
Find out what your website is costing you.
A free Growth Audit™: a written, prioritised audit of your website, with the three fixes worth making first. It is yours to keep whatever you decide.
We take on a limited number of builds at once, so there is usually a short wait before a new one starts. Once yours starts, it is about 14 working days from agreed direction to launch.