How a Hyper-Local SEO Focus Helped Locke Funeral Services Surpass its Competitors

By their nature, funeral services are an intensely local service. When families are dealing with death and tragedy, they often turn to local experts to help them make arrangements and plan services. This gives marketing agencies a clear, simple objective: capture local search traffic. With that in mind, let’s take a look at how VGM Forbin helped Locke Funeral Services, a local funeral services provider in Iowa’s Cedar Valley region, establish itself as a local leader in organic search that outperforms its competitors in keyword performance. 

The Client 

Locke Funeral Services is based in Waterloo, Iowa with three locations in Waterloo and one in nearby La Porte City, Iowa. Forbin launched a custom website for Locke in 2021 and began SEO services in February 2022 with the goal of improving its local search performance as they expanded their footprint in the Cedar Valley region.  

The Strategy 

Prioritizing Local Experience 

Most of Locke’s client base comes from communities in the greater Waterloo and Cedar Falls, Iowa area. To attract as many locals as possible, Forbin had to examine a few things: 

1. What are the most visited areas on the site? 

2. What communities should Locke prioritize? 

All of this data was easy to analyze in Google Analytics. The most visited section of Locke’s website was the obituaries, and traffic to the site was most commonly coming from these Iowa communities: 

• Waterloo 

• Cedar Falls 

• La Porte City 

• Waverly 

• Hudson 

• Evansdale 

• Gilbertville 

Google Business Profile Optimization 

Focusing on local search became a priority. The first goal was to ensure that each Locke location had a Google Business Profile that provided accurate information about their service offerings, hours of operation, and location data. Establishing these Google Business Profiles is critical to appearing in local searches and establishing trust with local users. Recent search trends show that over half (58%) of businesses don’t optimize their site for local search. By simply following best practices, Forbin was putting Locke in a better position than their local competitors.  

Location Page Optimizations 

Next, Forbin needed to make content updates to the Locke website to reflect its local focus, which presented a challenging question: How can a site be optimized for local search when the business has multiple locations and serves a multitude of other communities? The solution became clear: Optimize Locke’s location pages. Rather than having repeated location information that can be found on any online listing, Forbin populated the location details pages with driving directions from local communities to each of Locke’s locations. This update put local content on Locke’s website that ranks well and serves as a resource for users at the same time.  

Highlighting Service Differentiators & Planning Tools 

From the beginning of their relationship with Forbin, Locke’s marketing has been focused on two primary elements, serving local families and encouraging funeral pre-planning services. Locke’s service differentiators are their advantage, and include three things that not all competitors offer: 

• Online funeral pre-planning tools 

• On-site cremation services at their main Waterloo location 

• An eCommerce store where users can purchase floral arrangements 

To effectively market these services and help Locke accomplish their goals, Forbin utilized a mix of targeted content marketing and user experience (UX) strategies.  

Blogging for Search and Sales 

Forbin developed a blogging strategy focused on building unique content. Regularly updating a blog is one of the most effective marketing tools available to any business. A strong blog can lift all your marketing channels simultaneously. Not only does it help improve organic search rankings, but it’s a valuable content piece that can be linked to in paid search ads, social media posts, and email marketing pieces. Regular, SEO-rich blog posts helped Locke: 

• Climb the ranks in organic search 

• Fuel content for paid ads, email marketing, and social media 

• Reinforce their authority as local experts in the Cedar Valley and beyond 

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The Results 

Keyword Dominance 

These strategies have helped Locke establish a dominant presence in local search compared to its competitors. Today, Locke ranks in the top 100 organic search results for more than 14,000 unique keywords. By comparison, their three closest competitors rank for just over 2,500 combined. And while volume is important, it’s more critical to rank for the right keywords. 

Ranking ahead of competitors for keywords related to key services is an essential part of any SEO strategy, but it’s only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to effective online marketing. Once users get to the site, Forbin needed to ensure Locke’s website could capitalize on the traffic.  

Increased Retention & Conversions 

Over the last 7 months, Locke’s website has seen increases across the board in traffic, retention, and conversion metrics. 

Organic Traffic Growth  

The improved keyword performance helped drive overall growth across key metrics, including: 

• 10% increase in organic users 

• 19% increase in organic sessions 

• 5% increase in total pageviews  

• 17% increase in non-obituary pageviews 

User Engagement 

While increased traffic is valuable, the real win is in the engagement metrics, which show that users are not only visiting the site, but interacting more meaningfully once they arrive: 

• 10% increase in average session duration 

• 17% increase in average session duration for organic sessions 

• 10% increase in events per session 

• 16% increase in total events 

• 15% increase in average engaged session duration 

• 26% increase in engaged sessions per user 

Conversions 

Finally, it was important that Forbin’s efforts provided a measurable ROI for Locke. These improved traffic and retention metrics led to a similar growth in conversions. Over the last 7 months, Locke has averaged 260 conversions per month, a 36% increase over the preceding period. Nearly 62% of those conversions originated from organic search sessions. For specific actions, Locke saw: 

• 34% increase in clicks to the Online Planning Center 

• 33% increase in clicks to their funeral planning collaboration portal 

• 25% increase in phone calls 

Simply put, the strategies implemented by Forbin have resulted in more visibility, more engagement, and more leads. This means that not only are more users visiting the site, but they are also staying longer and converting more, providing Locke with actionable leads to further grow their presence in Iowa’s Cedar Valley area.  

Conclusion 

Locke Funeral Services’ success underscores the power of a focused, locally driven digital marketing approach. By understanding the unique nature of funeral services as a community-based offering, VGM Forbin was able to craft a strategy that prioritized visibility in the Cedar Valley area, while also enhancing user experience and driving meaningful engagement. 

The results speak for themselves: dramatic increases in keyword rankings, user engagement, and conversion metrics have positioned Locke as the clear leader in their market. More importantly, these improvements have translated into real-world outcomes, more families finding Locke when they need support, and more users taking action through the website. 

Looking for help optimizing your website content through SEO? Contact Forbin’s online marketing experts to schedule a consultation.  
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