Search Marketing: Vertical Search Holds Great Value for B-to-B Catalogers

But when evaluating vertical search engines, don’t assume that all clicks are leads. Often, clicks remain faceless and uncontactable. They’re not worth much unless you’re converting them. So, know who they are and if they’re qualified.

You can maximize your presence on vertical search engines and qualify those potential leads by sending visitors to a landing page where you offer them something of value for visiting. Make it possible for them to tell you who they are so you can make an effort to convert these clicks into leads and customers.

True vertical search engines give industrial and business marketers the ability to put their messages directly in front of a highly targeted audience without all the waste of mass-market search engines. You pay for a highly targeted, active user base that you can use to generate actionable results quickly, rather than accumulate a useless pile of Web statistics. So if your customers can find a needle now, they won’t go to a giant haystack with needles buried in it. They’ll go looking through a pile of needles.

Jeff Killeen is chairman and CEO of GlobalSpec, a vertical search, information services and e-publishing company headquartered in Troy, N.Y. Contact him at jkilleen@globalspec.com.