Adding Geo Meta Tags to Your WordPress Website
Boost your search engine results.
What is a Geo Location Meta Tag?
A geo location tag is a piece of code inserted into your website that specifies the physical location of your business. You can specify the exact address of your location, or even something more general like a city or state.
Why Do You Need a Geo Location Tag?
A geo location tag isn’t something that is seen by your website visitors, but they are picked up by Google and other search engines and are used in location-based searches.
Ever tried to search for a pizza delivery place near you? Chances are you aren’t going to receive pizzeria results from Toledo, Ohio – unless you happen to actually be in Toledo. That’s because search engines are using your unique location information to identify where you are and then serving up location-relevant results.
If you want your business to rank well in location-based searches, and especially if your business has a brick and mortar location, you definitely want to implement geo location tagging on your website.
PRO-TIP: Be sure you also have a Google Business Page set up as well. That does wonders for location-based searching!
How to Implement a Geo Location Meta Tag on Your Website
The good news is that getting and adding this code to your WordPress website is relatively painless.
Step 1 – Generate the code to specify your unique location
There are a ton of geo tag generators available for free online. Here’s our go-to solution: Geo Tag Generator
All you need to do is input your location. If you have a physical brick and mortal location, you’ll likely want to put in your exact address. If you are an online business or home-operated business, you might want simply input your city and state/province.
Once you input your address information your code will be automatically generated for you. Be sure to confirm the pin on the map corresponds to your location!
Here’s an example of what the generated code will look like. (This is the geo location for the Minneapolis Central Library, in case you are wondering.)
<meta name=”geo.placename” content=”Minneapolis” />
<meta name=”geo.position” content=”44.980257;-93.270034″ />
<meta name=”ICBM” content=”44.980257, -93.270034″ />
The website header is a coded section of your website that is not visible to your visitors. If you were to look at the code of any website, you’ll find the header section at the very top, sandwiched between the <head> and </head> tags, and above the <body> tag – which is the section of your website that actually gets displayed.
Here’s an example of what the header section of the Geo Tag Generator site looks like:
<meta charset=’utf-8′ />
<title>Geo Tag Generator</title>
<meta name=”DC.title” content=”Geo Tag Generator” />
<meta name=”geo.region” content=”DE-BY” />
<meta name=”geo.placename” content=”München” />
<meta name=”geo.position” content=”48.169822;11.601171″ />
<meta name=”ICBM” content=”48.169822, 11.601171″ />
<meta name=”description” content=”Use this HTML Geo-Tag-Generator to create html geo tags for your WEB-Site and show your location to the community” />
<meta name=”author” content=”Helmut Karger” />
<meta name=”keywords” content=”tag, generator, geo, web, tags, meta, site, create, html, editor, geocoding, geotagging” />
<script src=”https://maps.google.com/maps/api/js” type=”text/javascript”></script>
<script src=”texten.js” type=”text/javascript”></script>
<script src=”geo.js” type=”text/javascript”></script>
<link rel=”shortcut icon” type=”image/x-icon” href=”http://www.geo-tag.de/favicon.ico” />
<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”../style/style.css” />
</head>
<body>
[Visible portion of website code goes here.]
Step 2 – Installing the Geo Location Tag Code
The general instructions are to simply copy and paste the code into your header anywhere between the two <head> and </head> tags. For WordPress users, there are a bunch of different ways you can accomplish this:
- Add the code directly to the header.php file (only recommended if you are using a child theme, otherwise the code will get overwritten when you do a theme update)
- Check to see if your theme has an option for adding header code (many do as this is also how other tracking codes are implemented, such as Google Analytics or your Facebook pixel.)If you happen to be working with the Divi theme (one of our favorites), you can find this under Divi– Theme Options – Integration – “Add code to the of your blog”
- If your theme does not have this option, you can install a plugin to take care of the code injection for you. There are several available, but either one of these would do the trick:
Heads Up! Be sure to double check that you’ve copied and pasted the code correctly. Something as simple as a missing bracket could potentially crash your website!
Step 3 – Verify Your Geo Location Tag Code is Implemented
After you’ve added the code, go ahead and make sure you flush any caching plugins you have (or any caches at the hosting level), visit your webpage and right click. The exact options you see here will depend on what browser you are using, but you should see something like “view source code” or “view page source”. If you don’t see any options like that, you’ll need to enable the developer tools for your browser. Doing a quick search for “enable developer tools for [your browser name]” will get you going in a minute or two.
Once you have the source code open, just scroll to the top of the page, locate the <head> tag, and look for your inserted code.
Um, No Thanks!
If the thought of adding code to your website freaks you out, or if you just have a question about implementing the geo location tag on your website, no worries! We are happy to help you out. Just hit us up in the web form below and we’ll get you all straightened out.
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About the Author
Jessica is the Director of Digital Marketing and Owner of Dohmain Designs. She is a small business sales and marketing expert specializing in business growth through intelligent website design and sales & marketing automation.
Jessica is a Certified Infusionsoft Partner, marketing automation and CRM expert with 20 years of professional sales and marketing experience. In 2011, she combined that experience with innovative website design and created Dohmain Designs. She has worked with biotech giants, overseen the digital marketing for a popular Discovery Channel hit TV series, worked with internationally known influencers, and helped hundreds of clients grow their business. Prior to creating Dohmain Designs, Jessica worked in the fast-paced biotech sector focusing primarily on technical sales and marketing, as well as providing complicated sales-focused CRM training across various disciplines.
Jessica is a member of her local Rotary Club where she has previously served as the Membership and Public Relations chairs and currently serves as the 2020-2021 President-elect. Jessica truly believes in the "Service Above Self" Rotarian philosophy and strives to dedicate her time and talents to helping others, both in her personal and professional relationships.
She is located in the Minneapolis / St. Paul area and works with clients all across North America. If you'd like to get in touch with Jessica, simply complete the contact form below.