Vertical Search Optimization

Vertical search engines, mobile and search trends seem to be reshaping the search landscape. Whether spoken, typed or tapped, search queries are the medium through which consumers discover information and make decisions. Search is all around us; it is embedded into smartphone devices and is the fulcrum of Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered digital assistants. Moreover, recent research shows that mobile now accounts as much as 57% of total search traffic. Search has become more powerful, dynamic and fragmented. This brings some challenges along with opportunities.

Opportunity – The sheer quantity and variety of online content is necessitating this change. Almost 45% of people watch more than an hour of online video online each week on either Facebook or YouTube, Snapchat users share over 500,000 every minute, and according to Internet Live stats, Google processes over 3.5 Billion queries every day. In order to sift through the information at their fingertips and arrive at the right result as quickly as possible, an increasing number of consumers prefer the specialized nature of a vertical search engine.

Vertical Search Engine focuses on one specific industry or type of content. Common examples would include a travel search engine like Kayak or the image based interface of Pinterest. The term “vertical” applies to both the indexation and serving of content, which is neatly organized by category. Product searches may take place on Amazon or a consumer may go to a site like Indeed to look for a new job.

For marketers with one specific type of product or service to sell, the lure of vertical search can be clear too. They can meet their audience when their search intent is overt and can focus their energies on a platform that they know will deliver results. Google universal search, which indexes and ranks image results alongside video and local listings, is an aggregation of verticals into what appears to be more conventional, horizontal search engine. Recent moves into the jobs market, along with a revamped flights search engine, show Google’s ambitions to develop specific new technologies to gain market share in profitable verticals.

If we analyze recent data, we can see that vertical search is still taking off, outside of Google. Google web search has merged with Google Image and Google Maps, and the likes of YouTube, Pinterest and Amazon are in the ascendancy while still remaining minor players in the grand scheme. The innately commercial nature of Amazon searches will be of interest of retailers, while Pinterest reports that 97% of its searches are non-branded. Both of these platforms are improving their paid search offering at a rapid rate, which is again a sign of their increasing prominence in the search landscape.

The competition for consumer attention spans grows ever fiercer, and SEO is no longer just about getting Google right. Google itself is more complex than ever before and marketers could also conceivably focus their attention on vertical search engines rather than the global search giant. For marketers to consider is the nature of consumer behavior on the relevant vertical search engine for their brand. Consumer demands and expectations will differ based on the search engine, and they will have started query there for specific reasons.

There are some best practices we can apply for any vertical search optimization campaign:-

1.      Research your audience behaviors across different search engines

2.      Maintain a cohesive brand presence across all major social networks

3.   Use structured data and Open graph tags to help search engines locate and understand your content

4.    Access behaviors across your websites and mobile apps, focus on unblocking any challenges users have in accessing content

5.   Master the fundamental elements of site experience that will benefit performance on any search engine, such as page load speed

6.      Adapt your content for every search engine

7.     Use specific integrations with vertical search engines that can allow your website content to be served within their results

SEO is not just about trying to rank on Google anymore. Search behaviors are changing and new content opportunities arrive constantly. We need to evolve our strategies to make the most of this set of circumstances. The industry is reaching a point now where deep learning allows search engines to understand both content and context with accuracy levels we could barely have imagined just a few years ago.