Welton Hong
on
Written By Welton Hong, founder and CEO of Ring Ring Marketing
When someone needs a cemetery, they rarely conduct casual research.
They’re often planning ahead, looking for a permanent place for themselves or a family member. Or they may be dealing with an immediate need and trying to find a cemetery quickly. In either case, Google has become one of the most important places where that decision begins.
For cemetery operators, that raises a critical business question: How does Google decide which cemeteries appear in its Maps results?
This question was the subject of a recent webinar I held for cemetery professionals, and the answer has become considerably more complicated than it was a few years ago.
Local search used to be relatively easy to separate from organic search. The map results were one thing, and the traditional organic results were another.
Today, those systems are more interwoven: Your Google Business Profile, website, reviews, citations, links and user behavior all contribute to how Google understands your cemetery.
And now there is another layer: Google’s AI Overviews, along with the broader movement toward conversational search through tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini.
As a result, the fundamentals of local search matter more than ever.
First, Understand What Local Search Really Means
There is a persistent misconception in the deathcare profession that you can rank your cemetery on Google Maps throughout an entire metropolitan area.
That’s simply not how local search works.
As a general rule, Google wants to show businesses that are physically located in the geographic area represented by the search. If a cemetery is in San Francisco and someone searches for a cemetery in San Francisco, Google will primarily consider cemeteries with physical locations in that market.
If there aren’t enough relevant businesses in the city, Google may expand its search radius and consider businesses in neighboring communities. But getting a cemetery to consistently appear in map results for a city where it doesn’t have a physical location is extremely difficult.
That is why cemetery operators should be skeptical of anyone promising that a particular SEO trick will allow them to dominate Maps in multiple cities.
And whatever you do, don’t use a fake address.
Google has become far too sophisticated for that to be a sustainable strategy. A legitimate business should have a legitimate location associated with its Google Business Profile.
There can be some additional complexity when a funeral home and cemetery operate under the same roof. It is perfectly legitimate to have two businesses at the same physical address, but Google may have difficulty distinguishing them if their information is not properly structured. In some circumstances, separate Google Business Profiles may be appropriate—particularly when the funeral home and cemetery are genuinely distinct operations.
The key is accuracy and consistency.
Your Google Business Profile Is Key
If you want your cemetery to perform well in local search, start with the Google Business Profile.
Google wants to understand that your business is legitimate, active and engaged with its customers. The more complete and accurate information you provide, the more confidence Google can have in understanding what your cemetery does and when it should appear.
This is why cemetery operators should not treat their Google Business Profile as a “set it and forget it” listing.
At least once a month, log in and review it. Update your services and products. Add photographs. Make sure your business information is accurate. Look for opportunities to provide additional information about what you offer.
A good rule to follow: Everything important about your cemetery belongs on the Google Business Profile, even if that information also appears on your website.
Google isn’t necessarily trying to force people away from your website. But the more useful information Google can obtain directly from your profile, the better it can understand your business and match it with relevant searches.
Google Posts are a slightly different story.
Google introduced Posts as part of its effort to compete in the social-media space, but they aren’t a major local-ranking factor. They can still be useful, particularly for branded searches. If someone searches for your cemetery by name, a Google Post can help you promote an upcoming event, educational program, community activity or other announcement.
But don’t confuse that with a strategy for improving your Maps ranking. Your time is generally better spent keeping the core elements of your profile accurate, current and complete.
Reviews Are a Major Ranking Signal
If there is one area where cemetery operators should become much more proactive, it is reviews.
Google wants to see that real customers are interacting with a real business. Reviews provide an important signal of that activity, and recency matters. A cemetery with a large collection of reviews from years ago but little recent activity doesn’t send the same signal as a cemetery that consistently receives new feedback.
That means you can’t simply accumulate 100 reviews and declare victory.
You need to keep the process going.
The good news is that cemetery operators have an advantage here that many businesses don’t: there are natural moments when a family has just completed an important transaction or interaction with the cemetery.
For example, after a family has signed a preneed agreement and you know they are satisfied with the experience, simply ask for feedback on Google. If they’re standing right in front of you and have just had a positive interaction, don’t make the process unnecessarily complicated. Ask them, provide the link and, if appropriate, let them complete the review while they’re there.
You can also go back through your customer records and reach out to people you have served over the past several years. Give them a direct link to your Google review page and make the request straightforward.
You do have to get comfortable asking.
And don’t overlook the other side of the equation: Respond to your reviews.
That means the positive ones and the negative ones.
When someone leaves a negative review and nobody responds, prospective customers are left with an unanswered version of the story. From a business perspective, that’s a problem. A professional, appropriate public response demonstrates that the cemetery is paying attention and cares about what happened.
It can also contribute to your overall engagement signals.
Don’t Forget Citations
Another important piece of the local-search puzzle is citations.
A citation is essentially a reference to your business’s name, address and phone number across online directories and business databases. Google uses these references as additional evidence that your business is legitimate.
The important thing is consistency.
Your business name, address and phone number should match across the major directories. Google, Facebook, Bing, Yelp, Apple Maps and other prominent platforms all contribute to the ecosystem Google uses to understand businesses.
One useful resource is Moz’s business-listing tool, which allows you to check where your business information is appearing and identify inconsistencies.
This is an area where cemetery operators should be cautious about shortcuts. There are services that promise to manage directory listings for you, but you should understand exactly what a service is doing — and what it isn’t doing — before assuming your citations are being handled.
I’d rather see a cemetery identify the most important directories and make sure those listings are correct than blindly assume that a third-party service has solved everything.
And be especially careful with tracking phone numbers. If every directory contains a different phone number, you can create unnecessary confusion for Google’s systems. If you use call tracking, structure it carefully so your actual business phone number remains associated with the business while the tracking number is handled appropriately.
Your Website Still Matters
One of the biggest mistakes cemetery operators can make is assuming that because they have a Google Business Profile, their website doesn’t matter.
It does.
Website content remains an important component of local search. And cemeteries have an advantage over many funeral homes because cemetery websites tend to contain more original, location-specific information.
Funeral homes often rely heavily on templated or syndicated content. If dozens of funeral homes have essentially the same service descriptions, Google has little reason to view one version as more useful than another.
Cemeteries have an opportunity to do better:
- Tell the story of your cemetery.
- Explain its history.
- Describe its sections and services.
- Create useful information for families.
- Develop content around the questions people in your community ask.
Artificial intelligence can help with brainstorming and rewriting, but don’t use it to produce generic content that could have been written for any cemetery in the country. Use tools such as ChatGPT or Gemini to help develop ideas and improve existing material, then make sure the finished content is genuinely relevant to your cemetery and your local market.
Google is looking for useful information — not another page of interchangeable marketing copy.
Links matter, too.
Think of a link from another website to yours as a kind of social vote. When credible websites link to your cemetery, they’re providing another signal that your website is relevant and legitimate.
Then there are behavioral signals. What happens after someone clicks on your website? Do they find what they’re looking for? Do they spend time exploring the site? Or do they immediately leave?
If people consistently arrive at your website and quickly bounce away, that’s not the kind of experience Google wants to reward.
Social media engagement can contribute some signals, but I wouldn’t make it the centerpiece of your local SEO strategy. Facebook and other social networks are relatively closed ecosystems and aren’t as easily indexed as your website and major business directories.
The AI Search Layer Is Changing the Game
There is another reason all of this is becoming more important.
Google is increasingly incorporating AI into the search experience, including AI Overviews. At the same time, consumers are becoming more comfortable asking questions directly through AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Gemini.
The exact rules are still evolving. Google continues to change when and how AI Overviews appear, and the behavior of these systems will continue to develop.
But one thing is becoming clear: The signals that establish your business as a legitimate, relevant and trusted local entity are becoming increasingly important.
There is also an important distinction between informational and high-intent searches. Google has strong financial incentives to protect its advertising business — advertising represents the vast majority of Google’s revenue — so it has to balance the popularity of AI-generated answers with the economics of search.
For highly commercial, high-intent searches, traditional search results and advertising remain extremely important. For informational searches, AI-generated answers are becoming more prominent.
That means cemetery operators need to prepare for both worlds.
The cemetery that has accurate business information, strong reviews, consistent citations, useful website content and credible links is giving not only Google Maps but increasingly AI-powered search systems more information from which to understand the business.
The Biggest Takeaway
The biggest takeaway is that cemetery marketing on Google isn’t about finding one magic ranking factor.
It’s about building a credible digital footprint.
Keep your Google Business Profile current. Get more reviews — and keep getting them. Respond to positive and negative feedback. Make sure your name, address and phone number are consistent across major directories. Build a website with original, locally relevant content. Earn legitimate links. Pay attention to how people interact with your website.
And keep doing it.
The underlying business principle is remarkably stable: Give Google more credible evidence that your cemetery is the right local business to show a family, and give that family more reasons to trust you when they find it.