Does Your Web Site Know Geography? - Geographic Website Plans for Small Businesses
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One particular type of website definitely requires attention to geographic detail. Small businesses absolutely must pay extra attention to creating a site that is tied to the business' physical location. If the website's purpose amounts to an online advertisement for the physical store, as much effort as possible should be used to make the site geographically-centered. A store that doesn't create content that includes all of the details of where the store is located, will be buried in search engines.
Here is a scenario that illustrates how small businesses can profit from having a geographic website plan. If someone in San Diego is looking for a birthday present for their niece during their lunch break because they need a Beanie Baby by 7:30PM that same day, they may type in "San Diego toy stores" as a search query. There isn't time to order something online because they procrastinated until the last minute. They need to find a store fast. More than likely, the first store that comes up in the search results that is clearly in the area will be the store that gets the sale.
Reverse IP Lookup
Besides creating geographic centered navigation, URLs and content, a sophisticated technique used by some web professionals to tailor content to users involves reverse-lookup of a user's IP address. Some companies have created tools to give webmasters the location of a user based upon the visitor's IP address. The technology is not completely reliable, but if a website production requires such an elaborate setup, the technology does exist for a cost. One company that provides this technology is Quova, and they center their business model around translating IP addresses into a physical location. A news release from the company describes several uses of their service.
One example is from the online gaming industry. It is illegal for casino owners to provide gambling on the Internet in the U.S., as well as in Germany and China. Failure to comply with these regulations could cost the owners their gambling license. The GeoPoint solution from Quova identifies the geographic location of the potential online gaming customer to ensure that he or she is not within a jurisdiction where online gaming is prohibited.
Another example includes customers such as Major League Baseball (MLB), which must grant broadcast rights to local franchises. MLB was looking into streaming broadcasts of baseball games over the Internet but needed to adhere to local blackout restrictions. MLB uses Quova to monitor the location of online "fans" to make certain they are not within the blackout area. See Quova's site:
http://www.quova.com/company/comp_news_article.php?ID=119
NOTE: The process of interpreting the IP address varies depending upon the company. To learn more about how an IP address can be used to determine the physical location of a user, read about one process in detail at http://oak.cs.ucla.edu/~cho/papers/cho-geog.pdf.
Simply asking visitors where they are from is a less expensive and intrusive means of determining where surfers live. Asking for a ZIP code when signing up for a service on the site allows the production team to make better-informed decisions about who is actually browsing the site. Some people will input fake ZIP codes so the data shouldn't be used as gospel, but in general, the data can be helpful and certainly more helpful than no data at all.
Concluding Notes
Implementing a geographic strategy should be weighed against the purpose of a website. Some types of sites will require a thorough geographic plan while others may need hardly any refinement in that respect. Don't force geographic categorization, content and navigation into a site for the sake of doing it. Only incorporate as much as is necessary. By using the proper amount of geographic consideration, a website may just find itself on the map of Internet success.
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