1) Consider a Gather-Powered Website Design First
Before installing the plugin, it's worth knowing there's a more complete path.
If you're open to it, a Gather-powered website is the best way to put obituaries in front of families. If you opt for a Gather-powered website, your firm's obituaries (also known as Remember Pages in Gather) aren't a plugin or an embed - they're native. When you publish in Gather, they appear instantly, and the full Remember experience (photos, guestbook, candles, flowers, livestream) is built in from Day 1.
Your website, case management, and memorial pages all come from one team, with one point of support and nothing to piece together.
The WordPress plugin is a great way to start: add Gather to the site you already have, see the value, and move to a full Gather-powered website whenever you're ready. If you'd like to explore that, contact your Gather representative or email help@gather.app.
2) How Gather's WordPress Obituary Plugin Works
If you already have a WordPress website and aren't ready to move it, the Gather's WordPress obituary plugin brings Gather-powered obituaries onto the site you already have. It connects your existing WordPress site to Gather and drops live obituary content into your pages. It's designed to feel like a native part of your site, not something bolted on.
Here is a quick summary of what Gather's WordPress plugin will do for your firm:
Native Obituary Listings:
Add these to any page using shortcodes:
Obituary Carousel - a scrolling band of recent obituaries, ideal for your homepage.
Obituary Directory - a searchable, filterable list of all your obituaries.
Obituary Notifications - let visitors subscribe to be emailed when you publish a new obituary.
Full Obituary Pages on Your Own Domain:
Every obituary gets its own page at /obituaries/ on your domain. Choose the experience that fits your site:
Lightweight Pages - fast, server-rendered obituary pages that load instantly and read cleanly on any device.
The Remember Experience - the complete interactive memorial with photos, guestbook, candles, and livestream, served right on your domain.
Feels Native, Not Bolted On:
Everything routes through your own domain, and your Gather integration key stays securely on the server, never exposed in the page. To a visitor, it simply looks like part of your site.
SEO Built In:
The plugin publishes an obituary sitemap that search engines auto-discover (via robots.txt and the major SEO plugins), plus crawlable markup, so your obituaries get indexed under your own domain.
Resilient by Design:
If the Gather connection ever has a hiccup, your site keeps showing the most recent obituaries instead of going blank, and recovers on its own.
3) Review Requirements For Our WordPress Plugin
Here are the requirements in order for your firm to utilize Gather's obituary plugin that is available on the WordPress app marketplace:
A WordPress site running version 6.0 or newer
A Gather account
An integration key (contact your Gather representative to get yours)
4) Request The Integration Key From Gather
Contact your Gather representative or email help@gather.app to receive the integration key from our team.
5) Install The Plugin For Your WordPress Website
Search for Gather for WordPress in the WordPress plugin directory and install it, or upload it from your WordPress admin.
6) Activate and Connect The Obituary Plugin
Activate the plugin and enter your integration key.
7) Publish Obituaries to Your WordPress Website
Place the carousel, directory, or notification shortcode on any page where you want obituaries to appear. From there, you're off to the races to start publishing obituaries from Gather to your WordPress-powered website! You can also check the plugin status at anytime when logged into your WordPress account.
