What if I told you I often see one BIG thing missing from their sites that would not only drive more traffic to their page, but would probably rank them higher than their competitors in search engine results. I know, your thinking what am I missing?
The answer is simple. Geo Tags
In part 2 of my do's and don't of websites and blogs we will be going over Geo Tags, and how they can help your web site and your business.
What are Geo Tags?
Simply put, geo tags are special tags (in the case of web sites and blogs meta tags) that can be inserted into your web site or blogs code that does the following:
1. Gives the latitude and longitude coordinates for the address of your business.
2. Gives the region, country code, regional code, and city where your business is located.
3. You can use optional Dublin Core title tags to help describe your business.
4. You can use the ICBM optional tag to ensure your business location is available to a larger audience.
Why would you want put geo tags on your business web site?
Because search engines like Bing and Google LOVE Geo Tags. For example, when a user pulls out their mobile device in a new city, and they are looking for a restaurant to eat at. Google, Bing, Yahoo, Siri. etc use your current geographical location to find restaurants near you. Guess what that means for a restaurant that has valid geo tags on their site and their competitors don't? Your probably going to rank higher than them because your address location is verified, whereas sites without geo tags more guess work has to be done. Geo tags that are verified take out some of the guess work, and when push comes to shove, search services perfer less guess work.
This also holds true for mapping services like Google Maps, Bing Maps, etc. If a person is interested in your business, it will be far easier for those people to find your business if you have valid geo tags.
How do i put Geo Tags on my site or blog?
Thankfully, adding these tags to your site is not very difficult. Geo Tags are broken down into 5 meta tags. These tags MUST be inserted inside the <head> portion of your web site's code. examples below
<meta name="DC.title" content="Your company name goes here" /> - This is the Dublin Core Title Tag, it can be used by some geolocation services. You simply enter your company name here in the content ="" part of the tag inside the quotation marks.
<meta name="geo.region"
content="US-NY" /> - This is the geo.region tag, it allows you to define the location your in. In the example we are telling it that we are located in the United States in the State of New York. You enter here where your business is located in the content="" part of the tag inside the quotation marks.
<meta name="geo.placename" content="Rochester" /> This geo tag is used to define the city where you are located. So you would enter your current city in the content="" part of the tag inside the quotation marks.
<meta name="geo.position"
content="37.09024;-95.712891" /> This tag is used to define the precise coordinates of your business location via GPS coordinates. You can use the Geo Tag Generator to help you with this by inputting your address. Insert your coordinates in the content="" part of the tag inside the quotation marks.
<meta name="ICBM" content="37.09024,
-95.712891" /> This is an alternate tag to the geo.position tag above. You put the same exact coordinates into this tag inside the content="" quotation marks as you did with the geo.position tag.
When your all done, use the Geo Tag Validator to confirm your Geo Tags are working properly. If you have them inserted correctly into the <head> portion of your web site's code, and your using valid entries, they should validate. Your now good to go! It will take time for Google and Bing to pick up on these Geo tags, but in a few weeks you should start seeing results.
I hope this post was of some use to people out there. As always, if you like my content please Like me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter. Sharing is also good as well! I hope you have a great day!
Disclaimer: I
am not responsible for anything that may happen to your PC when
changing settings or changing registry values. If you choose to make
changes, you do so at your own risk.. You are solely responsible for any
damage to your computer , data, or other hardware due to user error,
inadequate cooling, too high of voltages, incorrect software settings,
and any other factors. Please remember to back up your computer before
attempting this. If overclocking, Do not Overclock on the stock AMD or
Intel CPU Heatsink and fans. Use Aftermarket cooling heat sinks of
sufficient TDP or water cooling to ensure best chance of not having
premature hardware failure. As always, remember to backup your data
before attempting any change. I am not responsible for data loss or
damage of any kind.
