Why Most UK Funeral Directors are Invisible on Google and What to Do About it

Funeral Director Marketing  |  Blue Square Management

80–90% of cremation services have their Google Business Profile set up incorrectly. Families are searching online every day. If your funeral home isn’t showing up, someone else is getting the call.

By Paul Birkett, Blue Square Management February 2026 Funeral Director Marketing

The Families Are Online. Are You?

Here’s a number that should stop you in your tracks. According to research by digital specialists Dignified Inbound, 80–90% of cremation services they review do not have their Google Business Profile set up correctly.[1]

Not slightly wrong. Not missing a photo. We’re talking about profiles that are incomplete, unverified, or simply ignored, while families in their area type “funeral director near me” into Google and hand the business straight to a competitor.

I’ve been doing digital marketing for over 15 years. And the funeral sector is one of the clearest examples I’ve seen of an industry where genuine, caring professionals are losing work not because of anything they’re doing wrong, but purely because they can’t be found.

This article covers what the data actually shows, why it matters, and what a properly run funeral director marketing service does to fix it.

How Families Actually Search for a Funeral Director

Most people have never had to find a funeral director before. When the moment comes, they don’t ask a friend. They don’t flip through a directory. They pick up their phone and search Google.

That search pulls up Google’s local map results, the pack of three businesses that appears at the top of the page, with star ratings, phone numbers, and a link to get directions. Those three listings receive roughly 44% of all clicks in a local search.

If your funeral home isn’t in that map pack, you’re not in the running.

It gets more pressing when you look at the wider picture. According to Statista, 87% of people use Google to find local businesses.[1] And research from HubSpot shows that 72% of people visit a business within five miles of where they searched.[1]

Funeral directors serve local communities. Their customers are, by definition, nearby. Local search isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the primary way families find them. Our dedicated SEO for funeral homes service is built entirely around this reality.

What Happens When a Funeral Home Disappears from Google

To understand the stakes, consider what a UK local SEO consultancy found when one of their clients switched off their Google Business Profile. Sales dropped 40% year on year.

Not 5%. Not 10%. Forty percent.

That’s a direct, measurable link between Google visibility and revenue. And most funeral directors have profiles that are technically live, but so poorly set up that they might as well be switched off.

An incomplete profile means no photos, wrong opening hours, a missing phone number, no responses to reviews, and categories that don’t match what the business actually does. Google deprioritises those listings. Families scroll past them. The calls go elsewhere.

The Shift to Online Funeral Planning Is Already Happening

This isn’t a future trend. It’s happening right now.

The NFDA’s 2025 Consumer Awareness and Preferences Study, one of the most authoritative pieces of research on funeral consumer behaviour, found that nearly 30% of families now complete all funeral arrangements online.[2]

That figure was much lower just a few years ago. It will be higher in a few years’ time.

The Facebook numbers are particularly striking. 40% of consumers have now used a funeral home they found on Facebook, nearly double the 21% recorded in 2023.[2] That’s a significant jump in a single year.

And yet, plenty of funeral homes in the UK either don’t have a Facebook page, or haven’t posted on it since 2019.

Does Digital Marketing Actually Work for Funeral Directors?

Does digital marketing actually work for funeral directors? Yes, and there’s a real case study to prove it.

A cost per lead of £17.69. An average job value of £3,000. That’s a return on investment that very few industries can match. And it came from a straightforward digital marketing programme, not something experimental or complicated.

The work exists. The results are documented. The question is whether more UK funeral directors will act on it.

What Good Funeral Director Marketing Actually Looks Like

There’s no single thing that fixes a funeral director’s online presence. It’s a set of connected activities that work together. Here’s what a properly structured service covers.

Google Business Profile Optimisation

This is the foundation. Your GBP listing needs to be fully verified, with accurate categories, correct contact details, opening hours, photos of your premises and team, and active review management. Without this, nothing else works as well as it should.

Local SEO

Local SEO is about making sure your website appears in Google searches for your area. That means optimising your pages for location-specific search terms, “funeral director [town name],” “cremation services [area]”, and building the kind of authority that Google rewards with higher rankings.

Google Ads (Pay-Per-Click)

Google Ads puts your funeral home at the very top of search results, above the organic listings. You only pay when someone clicks. For a service where the average job value is £3,000, even a modest budget can generate a strong return.

Social Media Marketing

Facebook remains the dominant platform for funeral home discovery. With 40% of consumers now using a funeral home they found via Facebook, an inactive or missing Facebook presence is a real missed opportunity. A consistent posting schedule, combined with targeted local advertising, keeps your business visible to the community you serve.

Video and Photography

Families making one of the most important decisions of their lives want to know who they’re dealing with. Professional photography and video, showing your premises, your team, and the care you take, builds the trust that converts a website visit into a phone call.

Why Sensitivity Matters in Funeral Marketing

This is worth saying plainly. Funeral director marketing is not like marketing a restaurant or a plumber.

The person searching is likely in the middle of a grief. They may be exhausted, frightened, or simply overwhelmed. The way you present yourself online, the language you use, the images you choose, the tone of your content, needs to reflect that.

“Funeral directors are trusted professionals in their communities, but too many of them are losing enquiries to competitors who simply show up better on Google. It has nothing to do with the quality of their service. It is purely a visibility problem, and visibility is exactly what this service addresses.” — Paul Birkett, Founder, Blue Square Management

A generalist agency will apply a generic template. What the funeral sector needs is marketing that understands the audience, and treats the search for a funeral director with the care it deserves.

Blue Square Management’s Funeral Director Marketing Service

Blue Square Management has been helping UK businesses grow their digital presence since 2010. In February 2026, we launched a dedicated funeral director marketing service, built specifically for funeral homes that want more online enquiries from families in their area.

The service covers every element of digital marketing a funeral home needs:

• Google Business Profile setup and optimisation
• Local SEO and organic search rankings
• Google Ads management (pay-per-click)
• Social media marketing, Facebook and beyond
• Video production and YouTube marketing
• Commercial photography

Everything is measured. Everything is reported. And every activity is focused on a single outcome: more enquiries from families who need help.

Frequently Asked Questions: Funeral Director Marketing