By Claudia Bruemmer

Search is changing in many ways. We have personalized search from Google, social media search and Web 2.0 applications and sites. All this against the background of increased demand for sponsored text ads on the search engine results pages (SERPs). At the vanguard is the rising prominence of vertical and local search engines.

Major research firms show that vertical search engines have become a necessity because of dissatisfaction with general search. Reportedly, the average search failure rate is about 32 percent, which has given rise to the development of three varieties of specialized search engines: local, topical and vertical or B2B.

Verticals give B2B marketers an advantage over general search because they serve highly relevant results for their industry or niche, enabling users to find needed information quickly and easily. More importantly, they offer advertisers many distinct advantages.

The Vertical Advertising Advantage: As an advertiser, you get more visibility in a less crowded environment, making it easier for users to recognize and interact with your brand. Your click-throughs might be lower, but conversions will higher with a targeted audience. These two factors result in a higher return on investment (ROI) for your marketing campaigns because you’ll pay for fewer clicks while gaining more conversions.

Vertical search engines offer pay-per-click search ads with excellent targeting opportunities. Many offer banner ads, direct links, special ad placement, user generated media and email marketing opportunities.

Banner Ads: You can request custom positioning for your banners on VSEs. Most verticals will go out of their way to please customers. They offer users highly relevant content with targeted banners on the SERPs, meeting their advertisers’ needs.

Direct Links: Vertical search engines will link directly to clients’ sites or requested URLs. This gives advertisers an excellent SEO benefit. Search engines can now associate the advertisers’ sites with a highly ranked VSE. Without such direct links, search engines might never find some sites.

Special Ad Placement: Vertical search engines can accommodate client requests quickly and on the fly. Major search engines, on the other hand, have to deal with corporate structure, perhaps running issues by IT and corporate, etc. Vertical search engines are lean and versatile; they can react quickly to changing market conditions and industry trends.

User Generated Media: Vertical search engines cover issues related to specific topics or industries. Therefore, they can allow customers to blog on their sites, encouraging industry participation. This transforms such verticals into Web 2.0 information super highways for their niche. Content can be user generated or industry generated. In fact, TopTenWholesale has been doing this long before Web 2.0. We employ journalists to cover industry topics. We provide forums for users and advertisers. We aspire to become the ultimate information resource for general merchandising wholesalers and retailers. Blogs and stories also provide great SEO benefits to the customers we link to in our stories.

Email Marketing: Many verticals have email lists, and these databases consist of recipients interested in the niche. TopTenWholesale’s opt-in email lists are much more relevant than any mass-market offerings. Our users look forward to receiving their weekly emails. By the same token, our customers love the responses received from their email newsletter ads. Relevant ads to a relevant and receptive audience make this offering a win-win.

B2B marketers would be wise to consider the above advantages of vertical search engines for their next online marketing campaign. You can run identical campaigns on general search engines and on a vertical in your niche, and then compare results. You may be surprised at the better performance you’ll achieve on vertical search engines.