The Magic Of Geolocation: How Websites Know Where You Are

We Know Where You Are!

You’ve likely visited a website and have immediately been greeted with “Hey we can see you’re in UK, would you prefer to see the UK version of this website?”

You may have wondered “how do you know I’m in the UK?”. Maybe you walked towards the window and looked through the blinds, trying to get a glimpse of any suspicious looking black vans that say ‘cleaning services’ on the side. Like you see in all the Hollywood flicks.

Spoiler alert! There is no van and no secret crew hiding in a plant pot.

Nobody is stalking you!

But a little piece of tech magic is happening with your IP address location, and the website’s IP address location. Linking these two things in harmony and presenting you with the most relevant version of the website.

Why Am I Shown Websites From Other Countries?

So the real question is why does this banner appear, not how.

There could be many reasons. However, in most cases it’s because you’ve landed on a page that is meant to serve a different country or market. Like landing on the .com of a company website when there is a .co.uk.

International businesses often have separate websites for separate countries. Whether that’s because the market is different, the language, the products sold there, or the pricing or back office tools are all different for each of the websites.

You might land on the incorrect version due to what has been indexed and displayed in the SERP, if you’ve directly typed that URL into the search bar, or down to browser settings.

Presenting incorrect content or displaying all the content and placing labels like ‘only sold in USA’ can confuse and over complicate the user experience. So this is where Geolocation plays its role.

Now before I go on, it is important to understand any SEO implications when considering Geolocation. If it is something you are considering, make sure you fully understand the impact it may have, and whether it is right for your website and business.

Speak to your SEO team and they can let you know if it is right for your website or websites.

Can One Website Serve The Entire World?

Gandalf was right to be concerned that there was a single ring to rule Middle Earth. But, a single website can serve the entire planet.

However, being that most countries have different products, different services and different ways of doing things, businesses often opt for an alternate experience for each country they serve.

Using geolocation you can hide and display certain content on websites based on the user’s location. This is probably the preferred approach if there’s little difference between your products or services across international markets, other than contact information for local offices etc.

You don’t even need to prompt people that they are seeing a website that’s for their location.

See the example below from Hanningfield.com. Based on the user’s location, the contact information changes to the local office phone number. Very simple but useful.

The single website with geolocation approach works well when there’s a handful of things that are different between countries or markets. The more content you show or hide, the more complicated the backend experience can be for your marketing and content team. Not to mention the greater impact it can have on organic search.

If you have a team operating in another country, then perhaps a dedicated website would best serve your international users.

Serve The Right Website For The Right User

Many businesses start with a single website before the company expands into overseas territories. At this stage it can be hard to introduce new domain names and costly if you need to update marketing collateral.

This is where geolocation can play a pivotal role, as the company can possess multiple websites under the same domain.

For example Domain.com, and then the user chooses (unless automatically directed) their preferred location, where they are taken to a sub domain or folder, like uk.domain.com or domain.com/uk.

Each Country Has Their Own Website

Established brands that have local dedicated websites and marketing teams face other challenges and one is, visitors reaching the incorrect website.

If you sell globally and a user is based in Sweden, then they likely want to see the Swedish website and not the one from the UK and vice versa.

This is where the ‘we’re detecting you are from Sweden banners comes into play’.

The example below shows what a user sees when a UK visitor lands on the Swedish website for Bakels.

Presenting the user with an option to visit their local website, as well as an option to continue to view the initial website they landed on should always be available. They may have a specific reason to want to visit a site different to their location.

If you have more locations then why not display them all, for the user to make a choice that suits them best.

Not all countries may have a dedicated website, and visitors searching for a specific country may fail to locate one. In this scenario, providing a local covering agent or website works well.

Bakels Worldwide do not have a dedicated website in Afghanistan, however they do have a local agent. By displaying the local agent’s details this can provide an interim solution until there is demand to launch a dedicated website.

So What’s To Swipe & Deploy?

Beginning To Sell In Different Markets

There are a few points to make here. Firstly if the business and website you market is growing and beginning to sell overseas, could geolocation features on your single website benefit selling in different markets?

Changing contact information and putting location based users in touch with their local reps?

Multiple Websites And Users Overlap

If you’re already running multiple websites in different locations and you want to ensure that all traffic from one country visits the local country website, then adding geolocation features can certainly help direct them to the right website and content.

Ultimately geolocation can be your friend or your foe. There are many uses for it but you have to ensure it is implemented correctly and it is the right solution for your business.

That’s a wrap for Swipe & Deploy #50. Join me next week when I’ll share another insight or piece of inspiration from around the web.