The symptom
The website is live, the analytics say people visit, and every family still arrives through the hospital, the care home, the coroner's list or someone's recommendation. Nothing comes from the site.
On life events sites we review, the cause is usually on this list, and usually more than one. They are in order. The first three are the path from a visitor's phone to a person who can help.
1. The number is not on the page they landed on
Visitors do not land on your home page. They land on a search result for something specific, often the price page or a page about cremation, and they read it in a hospital car park. If the number is only in the footer or only on the contact page, they leave and call the next result.
Fix: a tappable number in the header of every page, visible without scrolling, with the out-of-hours arrangement in words beside it. Say who answers at night. "Answered by a funeral director, any hour" is worth more than a graphic.
2. The price question is unanswered
The single most common reason someone visits a funeral website is to find out what it costs, and the second most common is embarrassment at having to ask. If the answer is a PDF, an out-of-date table or nothing at all, they go elsewhere.
Fix: the price list as a readable page, in the format your regulator sets out, current, with a plain sentence about what is and is not included. UK practices should work from the CMA's standardised price list and additional options list requirements; US practices from the FTC Funeral Rule's general price list and its telephone disclosure obligations. Check the current wording with your regulator or trade body. The point for the website is that the information is on a page, not in a download.
3. Nobody can tell what to do first
A person who has just found someone at home does not need your history. They need to know whether to call you or the ambulance service, what happens when someone dies in hospital, whether there is any rush at all, and what to bring.
Fix: a "when someone dies" page in short numbered steps, split by where the death happened, linked from the top of every page, with the number at the top and the bottom.
4. The site reads like a brochure
Mission statements, a slider of sunsets, phrases like "celebrating a life your way". Families notice this immediately and it costs trust.
Fix: short sentences, plain words, and photographs of your actual premises, cars and people. Replace anything you would not say out loud to a widow.
5. It is hard to read
Small grey type on white, low contrast, thin fonts, everything in a modal. A significant share of visitors are over seventy, and many are reading through tears or on a phone held at arm's length.
Fix: larger base type, strong contrast, generous line height, no text over photographs, and nothing that moves. Test it at arm's length on a phone in daylight.
6. The planning-ahead work has no route
Pre-need enquiries, will writing consultations and memorial design meetings can be booked. They are the enquiries with the longest lead time and the ones a website is best at producing, and most sites give them a general contact form and nothing else.
Fix: a planning-ahead page with its own booking route for a consultation, at your office, at their home, or by video, with the appointment types set up separately so the enquiry arrives labelled.
7. The message form asks too much
A long form asking for the deceased's details, dates and service preferences before anyone has spoken to a human. People abandon it, and they should.
Fix: name, telephone number, and a free text box. Optional email. A line saying when you will respond and who will call. That is the whole form.
8. Nobody is measuring anything
Without any tracking, you cannot tell whether the site produced two enquiries or twenty, and you cannot tell which of the seven above is costing you.
Fix: count call taps and form submissions by page. Look once a month. Discreet, first-party, and nothing intrusive on a bereavement page.
The order to work in
Items 1 to 3 are the path, and they usually change the phone within days. Items 4 and 5 are why a family chooses you rather than the firm three streets away. Item 6 is where a website earns its keep over years. Item 7 is whether you catch what arrives. Item 8 is how you know.
Where this sits
This list is the review we run before launching any of the life events websites we build, and the first half of a diagnosis on an existing site, whether it belongs to a funeral director, a celebrant, a memorial mason or a will writer. Most sites in this trade fail at least four. Almost none of the failures need a rebuild.