Specific, be specific

Be specific when writing for your blog or your site. I have a good friend who is an engineer by training. Through all of High School I do not think he ever even got a B+. In fact he was a straight A Student. After starting college, he had his first math class, and the exam final had only two questions.

He proudly took up his pencil and calculator and went to work. He finished the test and turned in the paper. The next week, he was so excited to get his grades, he got a D-.  Needless to say he was crushed. He made an appointment to go see the professor and see what was wrong.  He was afraid he might have to drop the class, or worse maybe even drop out of college. The professor pointed out he had not been very specific. When he copied one of the equations off the board for the final exam he had not been specific enough and missed a decimal point.  My friend argued with the professor saying it was not due to a lack in his arithmetic skills. In fact all of his calculations were correct, with the exception of the missing decimal point.

The moral of specificity:

The college professor just smiled and knowing he could make a long lasting point about being specific, And quietly said “Well miss one decimal point and the whole bridge falls down” My friend got a D- and to this day has not forgot that lesson.

In Conclusion:

If you apply that lesson to all of the things we talk about in our blogs, and on our sites, use specifics! Use specifics with all content, web copy, keywords, or keyword phrases and even landing pages. They are all meant for a very specific consumer.  If you have a client that wants to buy a house with a pool in the backyard, you don’t show him a house with a nice basketball court in the backyard.  Be specific and your consumers will be much happier with your commentary and more specific search results will match better with your specific content!

You can’t fit a square peg in a round hole! Make it real; make it specific to the consumer’s needs and wants.