Online reviews matter more than you might think.
In fact, recent surveys show that 93% of people say their decisions are influenced by online reviews. And in the funeral profession, online reviews are especially important because of the sensitive nature of the services involved.
So how can your funeral home actively monitor what’s being said about your business online? Thankfully, there are several easy ways to do so.
Google Alerts
One of the quickest ways to start monitoring your online mentions is to start using Google Alerts. It’s a free service from Google. It alerts you through email whenever any news article, blog, or webpage mentions the specific terms that you choose to be notified for.
For example, let’s say I set up a Google Alert for “Sample Funeral Home.” Anytime Sample Funeral Home is mentioned and appears online, I’ll get an email from Google with a list of all the places it appears. Pretty convenient, right?
To use Google Alerts, you’ll need a Google account, which are free to set up. Once you create a Google account, you can have alerts delivered to that Google account’s Gmail, or choose an alternative email address, such as the one you use for your funeral home.
To set up Google Alerts for your funeral home, follow the instructions below:
- Go to google.com/alerts.
- Enter the search term(s) that you want tracked. For example, you can track your funeral home’s name, your competitors’ names, and even general funeral profession news with terms like “funeral director” or “funeral home.”
- You can then customize your alerts further by clicking Show Options. From here, you can choose how often you want to receive alerts. You also can choose how many alerts you’d like to receive, and even narrow your alerts down to specific sources, languages, and regions.
- Click create alert and you’re all done!
Using Google Alerts is a great way to stay on top of your funeral home’s digital presence. It’s also a great way to stay on top of funeral trends and news in the profession. But there also are some other ways to track your online reputation.
Mention
Mention is a paid monitoring service that does media and social media monitoring, crisis management, and influencer marketing, and provides thorough analytics and feedback.
It has an advantage over Google Alerts in that it provides several more ways to narrow down and tweak your alerts to track specific mentions online. It also provides alerts for any mentions on Facebook and Twitter, another thing Google Alerts doesn’t do. Check out this review comparing Mention to Google Alerts.
Social Mention
Social Mention is similar to Mention, but tracks alerts and mentions primarily on social media sites. While it doesn’t do as thorough a job as Mention, it is free to use and does provide some useful analytics.
Vendasta
Vendasta is another full-service paid media and social media monitoring program. They also provide resources for how to respond to reviews, as well as guides on how to use sites like Yelp and Google Reviews to your business’ advantage.
Why Monitoring Your Online Reputation is Important
Remember, people take reviews seriously and they can impact your bottom line. So it’s important that you not only see what’s being said about you online but that you respond accordingly.
On Vendasta’s website, they make the case for responding to both positive and negative reviews. “A positive review is also a good marketing opportunity and one that shouldn’t be passed up… a review response is the perfect time to highlight the good qualities of the business and to spread the good word. [And responding to negative reviews] demonstrates that the business cares about the issue and it’s an opportunity to present their side of the story.”
By using some of the tools above, your funeral home can easily monitor your mentions on social media and on search engines to make sure you’re being represented fairly online.
For more advice on online reviews and testimonials, download our free eBook!
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