HubShout | Online Marketing Solutions

According to Dictionary.com, the word 'specialization' means "to train in or devote oneself to a particular area of study, occupation, or activity." I'm pretty sure the majority of people understand this, however, when it comes to marketing we seem to forget this definition pretty quickly.

I've done probably around 100 onsite SEO reports now and just want to point out one of the most common problems I see in marketing copy. That problem is the misuse of the word 'specialization' by following the phrase "we specialize in" with a long list of stuff.

In a world where most lawyers 'specialize' in every aspect of law, the person looking for a divorce lawyer will always pick the lawyer that says "we specialize in divorce law" and never the lawyer that 'specializes' in all law from animal rights to zoning. When you try to appeal to everybody, you appeal to nobody.

If that is their only SEO problem, they are in good shape. ;-)

Perhaps suggest something like "we excel in" or "experts in". Broad areas of excellence and expertise are still grammatically correct, and still give the potential client the impression of an expert, excellent practitioner of litigation.

I agree, Adam. When it comes to problems specific to SEO, the hands down #1 problem I encounter is that the majority of the sites want to rank for keywords that do not appear at all on the page. I can probably count on my hands the number of the sites that have had a target keyword show up once.

Bill, that's great advice for speaking to horizontal markets. As marketers, do you think we should be speaking to those markets? I take the side of Seth Godin on this issue and believe that its best to grow your 'tribe' in a vertical market and then use that authority and trust to slowly expand horizontally.

I was looking at it from the point of view of the lawyer who is already horizontal but limited by h own grammar. Although Seth Godin would indeed advise otherwise. The IdeaVirus, as much as any lawyer can have, is attached to the specialty, think about all the TV lawyers we see around here, and how viral their ads have become, you can probably name who to call if : you're hurt in a car? if the heavy hitters are all you need? for your injury attorneys? But I doubt you could name one local zoning, bankruptcy or divorce lawyer from advertising.

I guess what I'm trying to get to here is some specialities are very well covered by advertising already, but many are not. Perhaps starting something viral in one of those fields that isn't already "taken" by an advertising giant? (Which is just like in introductory SEO: take a keyword that isn't as competitive)? I'm pretty new here so I may be completely wrong, just trying to get an understanding of how this would work.

Well said, Bill! Thank you for entertaining my question. I agree 100% and your examples with TV lawyers are so perfect.

I still say that 454-2020 makes for a much better jingle than 888-8888

I agree, Paul. You can't "specialize" in everything.

Specialization following the phrase "we specialize in." Cringe.

YES! I agree with you 100%

"specialize" eek. I like "we excel in" or "experts in".