Drea Knufken
In recent years, several promising applications have begun to redefine Web search. One hot niche, if you will, is niche search. Although niche search engines like Technorati have been around for some time, a deluge of new search sites continue to refine the field.
From purses to podcasts, developers have built an engine to cover almost every category of product and service available. When you conduct a search on a niche search engine, you can find exactly what you’re looking for in a matter of seconds. Many such engines verify the quality of their results and pull from a variety of different sources, offering a one-stop shop for the niche you’re interested in. Sure beats sifting through hundreds of irrelevant or bogus results to find what you need.
Consumers clearly stand to gain from specialized results. But how can these smaller, targeted search engines benefit your business? In several ways:
They help people see your product or service.
If you have a website selling a product or service, a high rank on the right niche search engine can generate a lot of traffic. This is especially if the niche search engine in question is indexed by Google. For example, say you’re selling New Orleans Saints T-shirts. If you google the term, result #3 is a T-shirt from a niche search engines (Teenormous). If you have a high ranking on Teenormous, a T-shirt search engine, you have a vicarious high ranking on Google.
If you’ve ever tried fruitlessly to land on the first page of Google, or tried to advertise on a big search engine to make up for those low rankings, focusing on your niche presence could be much easier.
They make your ads more powerful.
Niche search engines target a predefined audience. If you advertise online, think of the benefit this may have for your conversions. Niche search engines target a predefined audience. You know who that audience is, so you can target your ads more effectively. If you’re a purse boutique, for example, running a Google AdWords ad on “purse” might land you a page 5 spot. If you target your ad to a niche search engine like the Trendy Purse, however, you’ll be more visible and more relevant.
They help you define your market’s competitive landscape.
A niche search engine can help you find who you’re competing against, and fast. Say you own a cafe in LA’s San Fernando Valley. A niche search engine like Goby will help you see exactly who else is out there, as well as what events they’re hosting today or this week. Niche search engines help take the guesswork out of your market.
If you haven’t incorporated niche search engines as a part of your overall marketing strategy, it might be time to start. Compilations like this one offer a good launching point.
