Does Your Web Site Know Geography? - Example of Geography Considered in Website Design
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On my web site, UnitedBands.com, I'm targeting primarily bands across the country, but also English speaking bands in other countries. There is one main page of band profiles where geography dominates the page layout and interface, pictured below.
(This is live at http://unitedbands.com/viewProfiles.php.)
Helping Users Find Information by Geography
Since networking between bands happens geographically, it's essential that people can find each other by state. The way I chose to aid the bands in finding each other involves a map of the country that has been sectioned off with an image map to allow a user to click on their state or the state they are seeking to network within and to find bands. This is a very simple, straightforward approach.
As the site grows, I'll add more detail, categorizing the bands even further to include major cities. In addition, I'll include maps of other countries to allow the international acts to better find each other instead of lumping them all into an international category.
Search Engine Benefits
Not only will a layout that involves geography help with the user experience, but it will also aid with search engine optimization. States, countries and cities can be embedded into the URLs so that search engine spiders will find geographically rich keywords that are common in searches.
For example, a term such as "California punk band" might not yield a hit on a site that hasn't been designed with physical location as a consideration. However, by creating directories that categorize bands by location and genre, the search term "California punk band" could easily be found within the URL. By combining geographic terms with other terms relating to the website's content and purpose, keyword rich URLs can be created.
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