Funeral Director Daily readership rising, but we could use some help
I’m a retired funeral home owner and operator of over 35 years (here’s my compressed bio). Back in early 2017 I was urged by a friend to write on my experiences and my thought processes on the death care industry because he thought others would be interested in listening. Personally, I didn’t think anybody would care to hear what I had to say. I am surprised by how many of you have told me you enjoy my articles and some articles have even been picked up by well-known funeral home publications.
I will tell you that I did not know what would happen when I started this but I researched how to present my opinions and find a forum where they could be read. I learned how to use technology to find articles that might be of interest to others in the profession and just started plugging away. For the longest time I had only about ten followers combined reading my articles through e-mail delivery, Facebook, and Twitter — and two of those were my sons just so I could figure out Twitter!! Even though nobody was reading at that time it was a valuable time in the evolution of Funeral Director Daily as I learned how to research articles and use search engine optimization to attract new readers.
Today I am excited to tell you that I have about 815 daily followers and have learned how to get my articles onto the search engines which helps increase readership — and I am still not tech savvy, but learning. Our May 2019 numbers indicate that we had 5420 readers as compared to May of 2018 when we had 3454 readers — that’s an increase of 57% year over year.
And. . . the first 15 days of June have put us on a reader rate of 6,248 for the month. . . which is a 15.2% increase over just last month.
Now, that is all good news but there is some news that is not so good. Everything I have done to this point has been organically produced at no cost. However, the size of my readership has caused my home computer server to crash once and I will soon have to start paying for using bigger services with a better capacity for cyber security.
So, the point is, that I need a little help. I am going to have to go out and look for business sponsors for my blog and you can help with that by either contacting me with a quote on how you enjoy my writings (if you do) so I can use those quotes to solicit sponsors or you can let me know if your business or other businesses you may know about may want to help sponsor the daily writings on the death care industry. You could also tell others about the blog and help increase readership which may help me in attracting sponsors.
Sponsors will be given space on the Funeral Director Daily cover page for intentional “click-thru” to their chosen web-sites. The site will continue to be “click-bait” free.
Thanks for your help and we will see what happens from here.
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The Funeral Director Daily is one of the very few providers of funeral service information that is not part of the Volunteer Fireman/Pyromaniac Syndrome, wherein a fire is lighted so it can be put out, usually for a fee. Rather, it’s information of greater depth without agenda.
Tom,
As a retired funeral director after 40 years, I just wanted to let you know how I appreciate your approach to what is happening in the funeral industry. I read your blog often because I’m getting a funeral home director/owner perspective and not of a so called “industry expert”. I fear our industry is chasing the trends that these “experts” come up with instead of listening to their clientele and finding out what they truly want. When I read a national publication and see an article I might want to read, I’ll go to the end and read the authors bio. If the article is slanted toward what they are trying to sell; I usually pass it off as what should have been an advertising piece. Hopefully your blog can bring some of these nationally recognized publications back home. Encouraging articles from men and women who have been successful in the industry and letting them write on what they see as trends that have actually come from the people they have served. I’m not for sure how many people feel this way, but for me, personally, it’s sad to see the advertisers are now determining the future of our industry.