You've just finished congratulating your marketing team. After six months of concentrated effort you can now actually find your own company web site within the search engines. Everyone is busy handshaking and back patting when a voice from the back of the room rises above the din. "Yeah this is great! Can't wait until we can find ourselves on wireless devices."
All conversation comes to an abrupt halt. Eyes widen. Everyone turns to the fresh-faced intern standing in the corner with a can of V8 juice in one hand and a PALM device in the other. You, being the Department Manager, barely managing to control your voice not to mention your temper, ask the now nearly frozen with panic intern, "What do you mean find ourselves on wireless? We just spent thousands on our web site visibility campaign!" "Well... Explains the sheepish intern, "There is no GPS or GIS locational data within our source code. Without it, most wireless appliances won't be able to access our site."
Guess what? The intern is absolutely correct. Anyone interested in selling goods and services via the Internet will soon be required to have some form Geographic Location data coded into your web pages. There are approximately 200 satellites currently orbiting the Earth. (even Nasa won't confirm the exact number) Some are in geosynchronous or geostationary orbit 27,000 miles above your head. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is the name given to the mechanism of providing satellite ephemerides ("orbits") data to the general public, under the auspices of the International Earth Rotation Service Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF). Sounds like Star Wars doesn't it? It's pretty close. The NAVSTAR GPS system is a satellite-based radio-navigation system developed and operated by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD).
The NAVSTAR system permits land, sea, and airborne users to determine their three-dimensional position, velocity, 24 hours a day, in all weather, anywhere in the world, with amazing precision. http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/
Wireless devices, WAP, Cellular, SATphones and a whole host of newly emerging appliances and indeed, new software applications, will all utilize some form of GPS or more likely GIS data retrieval. GIS stand for Geographic Information System and relies on exact Latitude and Longitude coordinates for location purposes.
Several car manufacturers currently utilize GPS for on-board driver assistance and the Marine and Trucking Industries have been using it for years. Obviously your web site is a stable beast. It sits on a server somewhere and doesn't move much, so at first glance it seems quite unplausible you'll need GIS Locational Data within your source code. On the contrary. One aspect your web site represents is your business's physical location(s) and if people are going to try to find your services and products, shouldn't you at the very least, tell them where it is and how to get there?
Let's look at it from the other end of the spectrum. The end user approach. Let's say you're vacationing in a new city for the first time. Once you get settled into your Hotel room, what's the first thing you want to find? Restaurants? Bank machines? Stores? So you pull out your hand-held, wireless, device, log onto the web and search for "Italian Food in San Francisco." Five Hundred results come back so you click the new "location" feature on your hand-held (which knows exactly where you are) and ten Italian restaurants, who were smart enough to code their web sites with GIS data, light up on the screen. Guess which restaurants didn't get selected? The other four hundred and ninety. Starting to get the picture?
How does this affect you and your web site marketing? GIS Latitude and Longitude co-ordinates will soon be a must have on every web site operators and web developer's list and an absolute necessity for anyone wishing to trade good and services via the Internet. This data may relate to the physical location of the web site or where the site is being served from (if applicable) or where the actual business represented by the site is physically located. There may be multiple web site locations and coding involved, if for example, you have a franchise with multiple locations, each location will probably need a page of it's own with the correct corresponding location data.
If you run a home-based business, I doubt if the co-ordinates to your living room are going to be necessary, but you should provide the latitude and longitude of the closest city or town. Large corporations such as banks may want to code the exact location of every automated teller machine across the country.
Industry standards and the methods of serving out this data are still in the development phases but it's a safe bet to assume there are plenty of people working on the solutions right now and given the speed of technology, implementation will probably be much sooner than later. Give yourself an edge. Find out where in the world your web site is...before your web site is nowhere to be found.
About The Author
Robert McCourty is a founding partner and the Marketing Director of Metamend Software and Design Ltd., a cutting edge search engine optimization (SEO) and web site promotion and marketing company. Scores of Metamend Client web sites rank near or on top of the search engines for their respective search terms.
Ancona limousine airport .. Lockport Chicago limo O’HareStarting a business online is no longer as difficult as... Read More
If you're an up and coming graphic/web designer just out... Read More
Have you ever thought the secret behind the success of... Read More
Build it and they will come is not always true;... Read More
When you consider the billions of individuals and companies on... Read More
One of the most important parts of establishing a new... Read More
Making money with your web site is the dream and... Read More
This article was prompted by some customer support work I... Read More
Today it seems everyone is jumping on the entrepreneur bandwagon,... Read More
People like to get immediate responses to requests. Autoresponders are... Read More
Web sites are an Ongoing Part of Business.All too many... Read More
That's right. Your method, behavior and strategy you are now... Read More
Making maximum profit from your law firm website is important,... Read More
The DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) states that service providers must... Read More
It amazes me how many people try to build serious... Read More
Knowledge is power.And undoubtedly, it is the key to making... Read More
We are clearly well past the innocent "golden age" of... Read More
What to do if you are an artist after you... Read More
In about the Time it takes to Watch a Reality... Read More
Getting a Targeted Visitor to a website is a waste... Read More
The Internet is being used by local service business to... Read More
The needs of screen magnifier users are overlooked when implementing... Read More
What is the point of having a website, you may... Read More
You hear a great deal about the Internet these days... Read More
There are lots of HTML editors on the market, however,... Read More
Buffalo Grove cheapest limo ..The Internet car buyer is an elusive animal. Trying to... Read More
Failure, just like success, is measured differently by each and... Read More
If you've been developing websites on Mars for the past... Read More
When most people build a web site, they think one... Read More
Many millions of dollars are being wasted on promoting and... Read More
1. The first page appears quickly.It's a good way to... Read More
So you have decided that you want to do freelance... Read More
Although CSS layouts have been around for years, they haven't... Read More
An accessible Web site is easily approached, easily understood, and... Read More
The evolution of web development parallels the model of technology... Read More
Research reveals three important facts:1) The Internet is one of... Read More
Everyone wants one.Everyone wishes they knew how to make one.SOME... Read More
Keywords in Search Engine Optimizing and Search Engine Marketing are... Read More
While most marketers are beginning to understand the critical importance... Read More
Every small business owner knows that they need a website,... Read More
I talk with so many people who have small businesses... Read More
After having decided to start a business, the next thing... Read More
August 8 2005, Macromedia announced a release of Studio 8.... Read More
See how you can create graphic effects on text with... Read More
Many small businesses have the misconception that their business can... Read More
The cost of setting up a web site is dirt... Read More
Like most average persons, I wanted some extra money to... Read More
A while ago one of my clients approached me and... Read More
Even though the Internet has been around for a long... Read More
"'Page Not Found' on this Server. Check the URL and... Read More
Web Development |