Is Vertical SEO Worth The Effort?
In a word, absolutely! Vertical SEO is the biggest opportunity you’ve probably never heard of. With the influx of daily queries, it is possible to find or sell almost anything you want. Vertical SEO is the optimization of content on specialized industry platforms. For instance, Pinterest is an image-based platform, Etsy is for crafts and Amazon is for products. There are many more out there. The point is that if you are selling something on the internet, optimization as you know it may not be enough. You could be missing out on massive amounts of business by not utilizing vertical SEO. Perhaps you have tried to use one of these platforms unsuccessfully without optimizing for the vertical platform.
The Inner Workings Of Vertical SEO
Vertical SEO is not yet a common term, but it certainly isn’t new. At the end of the day, the goal is to rank well on these vertical platforms while helping them bring in the traffic they are coveting to provide their audience with a valuable experience. Everyone is in the business for revenue. The platforms are looking for traffic which brings revenue and the businesses utilizing the platforms are trying to rank to earn revenue. Money makes the world go ’round. Vertical SEO is about utilizing an industry-based platform to rank for revenue.
Depending on the industry you’re in, it may be advantageous to rank in general search as well as vertical SEO. Vertical SEO opens doors and exposes products and services to a wider audience. Optimizing for vertical search is a much different experience than for general search. Each platform is different but many of them use engagement as a ranking element. These platforms want to see a lot of engagement because it’s free exposure. Aside from engagement, keywords are still important in vertical SEO but keyword density isn’t as big. They do, however, need to flow naturally. There are a few other factors which many sites include as ranking elements in the world of vertical SEO.
Velocity
This is usually determined as the speed in which people order form you. If it is not always an order you are looking for, the velocity may be determined as the speed in which people complete your call to action. This may be as simple as signing up for a newsletter or sharing a video but the speed at which people complete it is what is important.
Click Thru Rate
The click thru rate, or CTR, is the rate of speed at which people click through to your content when your listing shows up in search results. This lets the platform know how tantalizing your information or product is to the general audience. Again, not all platforms measure the click thru rate, but many of them do.
Reviews
Getting positive reviews is a great way to optimize vertically on industry platforms. Verified reviews especially hold a lot of merit when it comes to vertical optimization. A verified review is just a review which has been verifiably written by a true person who has not received anything in exchange for the review.
Putting It All Together
These measurable elements can be difficult to manipulate, which is why they have been chosen. The best thing to do is to create keyword rich content with spectacular headlines, even if it’s just a product description. This will eventually lead to positive verified reviews with a click thru rate which creates velocity. Put these three things together and you have vertical SEO. It is important, though, to ensure that you are in the right industry for your product and on the best platform for your industry.