Taglines are perhaps the most underrated and underused elements of personal and business blogs, yet they serve a huge function.
The social web has conditioned us to move through content-based sites quickly, and if we reach a site with an unclear thesis we’re likely to click to the next thing. You also can’t count on visitors to read your “about” page. In a world that increasingly moves at 140 characters or less, having a hook such as a clever tagline can make all the difference.
Taglines are your brand’s elevator pitch and help people get a quick snapshot of who you are. It’s your opportunity to be descriptive, catchy, memorable and create a unique brand for your blog. They also present a great opportunity for keyword inclusion, but not at the sacrifice of stickiness. Ideally you can combine something catchy and SEO friendly.
To help inspire you the next time you launch a blog – or any type of web publication – I pulled together what I think are some of the more creative, clever and effective taglines from around the blogosphere:
1. How To Change The World: A practical blog for impractical people
2. Successful Blog: You’re only a stranger once
3. Conversation Agent: Connecting ideas and people – how talk can change our lives
4. Sugarrae: Never mess with a woman who can pull rank
5. Boing Boing: A directory of wonderful things
6. PR Squared: It may be the future but you still gotta eat
7. The Consumerist: Shoppers bite back
8. Zen Habits: Simple Productivity
9. Yoast: Tweaking Websites
10. PR 2.0: The future of communication starts here
11. CopyBlogger: Copywriting tips for online marketing success
12. /Film: Blogging the reel world
13. Broadcasting Brain: Harvesting cognitive surplus for uncanny content
14. Psyblog: Understand your mind
15. Lifehacker: Tips and downloads for getting things done
16. Think Simple Now: Creativity, Clarity, Happiness
17. Violent Acres: Like you, but with poor impulse control
18. Bacon Today: Daily updates on the world of sweet, sweet bacon
19. Shoemoney: Skills to pay the bills
20. Techno Theory: Technical…Practical…Theoretically Interesting
21. Publishing 2.0: The (r)Evolution of media
22. Geek Sugar: Geek is chic.
23. Smashing Magazine: We smash you with the information that will make your life easier. Really.
24. A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC
25. Steve Pavlina: Personal development for smart people
26. Simply Fired: If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.
27. So Good: An absurd look at the world of food
28. Get Rich Slowly: Personal finance that makes cents
29. Personal Branding Blog: Navigating YOU to future success
30. SEO Book: Learn. Rank. Dominate.
31. The Impulsive Buy: Putting the “ew” in product reviews
32. PluginID: Plugin to your identity
33. Kottke: Home of fine hypertext products
34. Freakonomics: The hidden side of everything (also a book, but a great tagline none-the-less)
35. Web Worker Daily: Rebooting the workforce
36. Online Marketer Blog: If Copyblogger and JaffeJuice had a bad-ass baby
37. Auto Blog: We obsessively cover the auto industry
38. Advergirl: …yeah, I have an opinion about that
39. TwiTip: Twitter tips in 140 characters or more
40. Duct Tape Marketing: Simple, effective and affordable small business marketing
41. Apartment Therapy: Saving the world, one room at a time
42. TechCult: Technology, Twisted
43. Illuminated Mind: The less boring side of personal development
44. Don’t Drink The Kool-aid: Join the conversations. Just don’t drink the Kool-aid.
45. Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters
A few quick observations noted while compiling this:
The social web has conditioned us to move through content-based sites quickly, and if we reach a site with an unclear thesis we’re likely to click to the next thing. You also can’t count on visitors to read your “about” page. In a world that increasingly moves at 140 characters or less, having a hook such as a clever tagline can make all the difference.
Taglines are your brand’s elevator pitch and help people get a quick snapshot of who you are. It’s your opportunity to be descriptive, catchy, memorable and create a unique brand for your blog. They also present a great opportunity for keyword inclusion, but not at the sacrifice of stickiness. Ideally you can combine something catchy and SEO friendly.
To help inspire you the next time you launch a blog – or any type of web publication – I pulled together what I think are some of the more creative, clever and effective taglines from around the blogosphere:
1. How To Change The World: A practical blog for impractical people
2. Successful Blog: You’re only a stranger once
3. Conversation Agent: Connecting ideas and people – how talk can change our lives
4. Sugarrae: Never mess with a woman who can pull rank
5. Boing Boing: A directory of wonderful things
6. PR Squared: It may be the future but you still gotta eat
7. The Consumerist: Shoppers bite back
8. Zen Habits: Simple Productivity
9. Yoast: Tweaking Websites
10. PR 2.0: The future of communication starts here
11. CopyBlogger: Copywriting tips for online marketing success
12. /Film: Blogging the reel world
13. Broadcasting Brain: Harvesting cognitive surplus for uncanny content
14. Psyblog: Understand your mind
15. Lifehacker: Tips and downloads for getting things done
16. Think Simple Now: Creativity, Clarity, Happiness
17. Violent Acres: Like you, but with poor impulse control
18. Bacon Today: Daily updates on the world of sweet, sweet bacon
19. Shoemoney: Skills to pay the bills
20. Techno Theory: Technical…Practical…Theoretically Interesting
21. Publishing 2.0: The (r)Evolution of media
22. Geek Sugar: Geek is chic.
23. Smashing Magazine: We smash you with the information that will make your life easier. Really.
24. A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC
25. Steve Pavlina: Personal development for smart people
26. Simply Fired: If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.
27. So Good: An absurd look at the world of food
28. Get Rich Slowly: Personal finance that makes cents
29. Personal Branding Blog: Navigating YOU to future success
30. SEO Book: Learn. Rank. Dominate.
31. The Impulsive Buy: Putting the “ew” in product reviews
32. PluginID: Plugin to your identity
33. Kottke: Home of fine hypertext products
34. Freakonomics: The hidden side of everything (also a book, but a great tagline none-the-less)
35. Web Worker Daily: Rebooting the workforce
36. Online Marketer Blog: If Copyblogger and JaffeJuice had a bad-ass baby
37. Auto Blog: We obsessively cover the auto industry
38. Advergirl: …yeah, I have an opinion about that
39. TwiTip: Twitter tips in 140 characters or more
40. Duct Tape Marketing: Simple, effective and affordable small business marketing
41. Apartment Therapy: Saving the world, one room at a time
42. TechCult: Technology, Twisted
43. Illuminated Mind: The less boring side of personal development
44. Don’t Drink The Kool-aid: Join the conversations. Just don’t drink the Kool-aid.
45. Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters
A few quick observations noted while compiling this:
- It was easy to get quite a few of these as the catchier taglines are sticky enough to recall without even visiting the site
- Only a few of these taglines are conscious of SEO, but it is an opportunity
- Many taglines were part of the image instead of as HTML text on the page, so if you’re going to include keywords be sure that they are text-based or at a minimum, include them as alt text to the image
- Many blogs have no tagline at all, relying purely on their name to tell the story
- Strong taglines make a great first impression
- Descriptive taglines work just fine too if they match the content
- Taglines can work in conjunction with the name of the blog itself – the two support each other
- Simply reading the taglines of sites you already know can provide a mental image of the site
- For blogs with non-descriptive names, taglines become even more important
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