For modern Internet resources (online stores, sites with services, forums, etc.) covering an extensive audience that can be located far abroad, you need to understand where a particular visitor is, because each country has its own language, currency, time zone and etc. Respectively, the site content should vary depending on the country.
In such cases, developers use different methods of visitor Geolocation in their projects.
What is Geolocation?
Geolocation is the identification of the geographical location of a device.
Moreover, this term refers to both the process of determining the location of the object, and the location itself. Today, Geolocation services surround us almost everywhere. They allow you to accurately determine visitor’s location, if he agrees to transfer Geolocation data from his device.
Why is it necessary to determine the location of visitors?
Geolocation can be essential in the organization of regional sales. Website visitor will receive the most useful and relevant proposal, taking into account his Geolocation. Current discounts, calculating the time and cost of delivery, determining the availability of goods in the nearest warehouses - all this can be automated if you know the location of the user.
By tracking the visitor’s location, you can offer him services and products that are popular in his region or even settlement. After that, you can much more effectively personalize advertising banners or ads.
A completely new marketing experience is not the only reason to determine the Geolocation of your visitors. Due to IP Geolocation, you can track potential cases of bank card fraud. It can be easily done: the buyer's IP Address is compared to the shipping address he entered.
Geolocation allows you to organize "Geo Zones" to identify countries or even entire regions in which the display of content will be impossible.
How to determine the location of visitors?
There are several ways to determine the location of a visitor. One of the most obvious and simplest is the use of the Geolocation API.
All methods for determining the user's location can be divided into two groups:
By IP Address. Using this method, you can determine the exact location of a city or region. The algorithm is simple: the user's IP Address is determined and using the API, the IP address is "decoded" into a geographical one. Unfortunately, the method by IP address does not provide 100% accuracy, therefore such frequently found on the Internet phrases as “I will track you by IP” indicate a low intelligence of their author;
According to W3C HTML, Geolocation API is a highly accurate method, but there is a big drawback - the user must give clear consent to the web page to determine his location.
What is an API?
Let's see what is an API?
An API is a service programming interface that allows developers to interact with it. Usually it has well-described documentation, many built-in modules, libraries and components that are accessed automatically. The site user does not need to leave the site.
When using the API to determine the Geolocation of visitors, the user will not even know that the site is trying to determine his location.
Using the API is convenient for the developer, first of all, by the ease of integration and that there is no need to configure local Geo IP libraries. In addition, most CMS, such as Joomla or Wordpress, already have a variety of plugins and modules that allow you to determine the Geolocation of the visitor. They work using the API.
Benefits of using the IP Geolocation API
Using the IP Geolocation API has several advantages:
- easy application integration;
- no need to deal with the configuration of Geo IP libraries;
- the user does not think about why they want to track him, because there is no pop-up window with a request for Geolocation;
- no special skills and knowledge are needed to use the API interface, just a few simple steps are enough.
How to determine user Geolocation by IP using API?
- Determine his IP Address;
- Send a GET request to a service with the right API interface;
- Get the visitor Geolocation data;
- Process it.
As you can see, it is quite simple to determine the visitor Geolocation in several ways. If you need an exact location, look towards the W3C HTML Geolocation API. For online sites and stores, defining Geolocation by IP using the API is sufficient. We would be glad to answer any questions you might have - Contact us.
