I preach the importance of pleasing Google endlessly - because the reality is that more than half of all online information seekers use that search engine.
But Google (and Yahoo! and MSN) are general search engines - that is, they sweep horizontally across the broadest possible sampling of websites to find results.
Who’s got time for needle-in-a-haystack?
Have you ever done a Google search and come up with lots of great sites to check out - but many of the ones you want - specifically business sites - are buried in the volume? The proverbial needle in the haystack search…
Try threshing the hay by also using vertical search engines; the most popular ones for business are Business.com and KnowledgeStorm.com.
There are reams of smaller, more specific vertical search engines for business - both in B2B and B2C markets. (For example, Trulia is a popular B2C search engine for real estate listings.)
B2B search engine are fewer - but they’re influencing buyers
Like most things online, the B2C space for search engines is bigger than B2B … but don’t underestimate the influence of vertical search engines on the B2B buyer.
According to a recent study by Enquiro Research, B2B consumers are using vertical search engines in all phases of their research. (Click on this Enquiro graph for more details.)
How do you benefit?
So, how do YOU capitalize on the growth area of vertical search engines, right? I suggest the following:
- Research which vertical search engine is best for your line of business. (E.g., if you’re a B2B supplier of manufacturing equipment, check out ThomasNet.com.)
- Submit your website to the vertical search engine(s) you think best fit your market. Be forewarned: the engines will decide if your site is appropriate to add.
- Keep monitoring your rankings in those vertical search engines; compare them to your rankings in Google and the other major general search engines.
- Continuously use SEO best practices to keep your website top-of-mind for ALL the search engines you appear in!
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[...] Vertical search engines are on the rise - both in the business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets. For every market, there’s likely a search engine of some size out there. [...]
[...] learning tizzy included Local Search, Universal/Blended Search; Video Search; Vertical Search… Local search is a relatively new area of expertise but, being tenacious folk, we SEO are [...]
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