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:
- 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
This is of course an incomplete list, so we’ll turn it over you. Share your favorite blog taglines in the comments that you think are creative, clever or effective.
