Read the title. What does it mean? “Vertical marketing” is a response to an increasing trend toward niche searches and finely divided communities. Vertical markets have always existed, of course. Not a lot of people need pelagic hydraulic fluids, for example. (In fact, even though I toured the linked site, I’m still not 100% sure what they are!) Increasingly, natural vertical markets are being joined by niches that have been “verticalized” by the evolving nature of searches and communities.

We’d like to hear from other writers who want to say something about SEO, Internet marketing, social media and the other stuff that we regularly talk about. If you’re interested in writing an article that’s content-focused (that means wacky SEO bot-gaming is secondary) and has a few modest links to stuff you like and are willing to link back to it from your own blog, drop me a line. Make sure to propose a subject and link to your other work.

You want visitors. Visitors mean leads! Why aren’t you getting them? There are lots of answers. The lack of an audience is not one of them. Do you like ray guns? Dinosaur jokes? If the Web has demonstrated one thing, it’s that there’s pretty much no topic that doesn’t have its share of devotees.