Vertical search engines, however, are more focused. Your search will only return results from a specified category. For example, maybe the vertical search only shows businesses, or blogs, or e-commerce sites, or even local results. You can see how using a vertical search engine can be much more precise, given you can find a vertical search engine for what you’re looking for.

Google, along with others do have verticals built into their search engines. You can do a local search on Yahoo, search Google Maps or sift through finance news. Basically, it’s a way to organize the massive number of results that live on the world wide web.

Now to the point. As a company, it’s absolutely essential that you are able to be found in vertical searches. What if you are a law office in Milwaukee and you’re not listed in online yellow pages, Dex, Yahoo! local and other verticals? Many times, potential clients will go straight to these directories to find a suitor. If you’re not visible, you’re missing out on potential cutomers. The bottom line here is to make sure that visibility in vertical search engines, along with visibility in horizontal search engines is part of your search marketing plan.

So what is a vertical search engine? Basically, a vertical search engine is a web site that acts like a directory for a specific industry. Often B2B companies will rely on vertical search engines to find a list of companies that can fulfill their needs. For example, instead of relying on search results of Google, Yahoo or MSN; a B2B company looking for a service might go to Business.com and look for businesses in whatever category they might be searching for. Now why would they go and do a thing like that? It’s pretty simple. Vertical search engines are straight to the point and give these users exactly what they’re looking for without a bunch of advertising and irrelevant information.

With that said, it’s important that you, as a B2B marketer makes sure that your company is visible in any relevant verticals. Which ones is dependent on what industry you’re in, but with a little digging, you can find them. Some are free and some require a fee, so it’s up to you and your budget to make the right call. Looking to see what verticals your competitors are in is a great way to start.