Search Engine Optimisation, could vertical search engines be the answer
A recent article written by Jason Prescott Find Your Niche with Specialised Search discusses the opportunities for businesses to find its place in vertical search engines .
One of the biggest issues with general search engines is average search failure rate is 31.9% (Outsell). This has created a gap in the market where vertical search engines have fulfilled offering targeted, specialised and relevant search results.
This article examines the advantages of pursuing a vertical search engine strategy versus general search engines such as Google and Yahoo.
Highly Relevant Results
Vertical search engines offer highly relevant search results for specific industries. Markets such as manufacturing, engineering and the scientific field have benefited from vertical search engines that cater to their market.
Examples of vertical search engines include:
- Technorati – search engine specific for users searching blogs online of all topics
- Pluggd- search engine that crawls available podcasts
- Farecast – search engine that offers users the ability to search and predict air fares
Cost Effective
The marketing space for vertical search engines are not as competitive as the general search engine market. Therefore marketers will often get more for their marketing dollar, higher click through rates and higher rates of conversion.
A Chance for Small Businesses
It is often hard for small businesses to gain effective results from search engine marketing (SEM) in general search engines because the market is often dominated by large players such as eBay, Amazon and AOL. Vertical search engines give small businesses the opportunity to be seen, and take advantage of the niche target market that the bigger companies maybe not aware of yet.
There are definitely advantages and opportunities that vertical search engines can offer to businesses large or small. Therefore its important when considering your businesses search engine optimisation strategy to consider not just the general search engines but the potential vertical search engines your business can benefit from.
