Step-By-Step Guide To Write An Effective Website Tagline

There’s something skeptical to taglines. For once it seems like it is what that makes a brand, but sometimes it feels like just another laughing stock. “Just do it”, “I’m lovin’ it”, “Eat fresh”, “Because you’re worth it”, “Gives you wings”; you can tell the brand names in the blink of an eye as far as these are considered. But what is it that separates the taglines of these massive giants from yours? Two things – You hear them very often, and they sure are well designed for the same.

Write Website Tagline
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From a business perspective, your company’s tagline is your elevator pitch to your audience. Elevator pitch is a succinct and persuasive sales pitch when you usually approach a VC/Angel for an investment. The shorter, memorable and effective conveying of your elevator pitch, more likely you’ll receive an interest from the VC, if not investment. Same goes here; Taglines are handy to draw quick attention and make your brand memorable.

How to Write a Memorable Website Tagline

A tagline works in alliance with your brand name and your brand motto. It is the bridge that gaps the distance between your Brand name and your brief motto. There may be a few things that the name of your brand name might not convey about its purpose, but a tagline never fails at doing so. There are taglines and then there are a few that you can’t manage to forget. Those are the ones you should be aiming for while making a tagline for your company, website, blog, book and almost anything.

Step 1: Define your company. Define your motto.

Website Tagline Tips
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Definitions are back! Define what exactly your company is, its motto and the sole purpose of its existence. Write down everything that you think your company/website is about. Is it about marketing tips, social media, mobile apps, etc.? Define the existence of your company. Be as concise and clear as possible. No need to make it cool or beef it up. Just make sure it is simple, clear and concise. Your tagline will start building from this point.

Write as many variations of your company’s motto as possible and make each one as much clearer as possible. Make a short, crystal company motto using less than 140 (or 100) characters, conveying the best about your company. Say for example, you provide digital marketing tips on your website; you can have something like, “Daily Digital Marketing tips for making you a better online seller than you were yesterday” for your motto.

Step 2: Ask Questions. Why? What? How?

Ask questions
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Questions, questions everywhere and who better than yourself to answer them? Answer questions that go unasked to yourself. Now that you have your motto defined, next cometh the questions. Ask yourself:

  • So What?

Okay, now I heard about your company. So What? Your answer to this question will make the next step. Ask yourself what your audience must expect from you. The benefits of visiting your company must be addressed properly. Your audience want perks and you need to offer them what they exactly are looking for. Answer what your company will do for your audience different from others. Write it down. Ask what benefits your company provides, and put the question ‘So What?’ in an infinite loop and write everything down until you can’t answer further. Take the same example: Digital Marketing.

Q) Digital Marketing tips website – So What?

A) Daily digital marketing tips to make you a better online seller than the one you were before.

Q) So What?

A) It is good because, you could sell more online.

Q) So What?

A) More online sales = More money.

The loop ends here for any online marketer and you can move ahead. Write down the answers to those questions and your clue might seek you from there.

Step 3: Throw some Adjectives to the mix

Adjectives in Tagline
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What are taglines without adjectives? In fact, words are colorless without adjectives. Adjectives are flavor to the food. Adjectives are used to convey a lot like opinion, emotion, quantity and purpose. Take Disneyland for example –  “The happiest place on earth”. A little bit of adjectives and adverbs will convey your emotions with a stint of clarity.

Give a taste of your business in your tagline. Pick out adjectives that conveys your business image in a colorful manner. You can easily come up with a ton of adjectives that define what your company does. Write down all of the suitable adjectives and/or adverbs that define what you do.

Step 4: DO NOT use cliché or Imitiation

Avoid overuse of cliches and bland taglines. There are taglines that convey what your company does and then there are taglines that are memorable. The difference between them is their chances of being remembered. Memorable are the ones that do not fail to convey the message and at the same time do not make the mistake of being bland. “Daily digital marketing tips” sounds not much more different than “Just another digital marketing blog”. “Innovation with computing” is another example of bland taglines. Although your tagline may be concise and simple, it is not memorable.

Making a memorable tagline is just as important as making a simple and concise one. One other thing to avoid is blatant rip-off of other companies. Stop copying and imitating others’ taglines and spend time on yours to make it much better and original.

Step 5: Simple, Concise and a little humor

Simple and Concise
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A little bit of humor in your tagline should do no harm. Whenever you have the chance to add some humor to your tagline, jump at the chance, without being hesitant. Take for example Cracked.com – “America’s only humor and video site, Since 1958“. It mocks the “Since a year” taglines and claiming to be the only humor site in America, even before the internet was born. Then there’s Meow Mix with a tagline – “Tastes so good that cats ask for it by name”.

If you manage to add some humor to the tagline without making it lame, by all means, just do it. Just remember – Simple. Concise. Memorable. Is what you should be aiming for while making your tagline.

Step 6: Back to the drawing board

Drawing board
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One word for hitting your best tagline forward – Brainstorm. Back to the drawing board. Repeat all the steps until you hit your original and memorable tagline. Brainstorm all of your ideas and crawl through them for hidden clues and hints. Better try sharing your ideas with your peers or acquaintances to get one or two suggestions.

Whatever it is, keep it flexible. Some companies change their taglines as quick as five years and some intend to stick with it forever. Review your slogan regularly and see if that works perfectly according to that particular situation – be it economical or cultural.

Tagline examples to find your groove

  • “A practical blog for Impractical people.” (How to Change the World)
  • “Simple productivity.” (Zen Habits)
  • “Skills, to pay the bills.” (Shoemoney)
  • “There is road everywhere” (Dunlop tires)
  • “A thousand dimensions for web apps.” (1K Dims)
  • “You’re only a stranger once.” (Successful Blog)
  • A guide for prospective students and lifelong learners.” (Bridgewater State University)
  • “Where wine meets design.” (Creations Uncorked)
  • “We create dreams, one pixel at a time.” (Creative Pundits)

So what is your company’s tagline? And which is your all-time favorite tagline? Shout out your thoughts and comments below.

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Authored By
A Shouter whose articles got mentions from the likes of The New York Times, Kissmetrics and AllTopStories. He writes articles, novels and poems; spends most of his time reading everything he could get his hands on. Srikanth is currently pursuing his Masters from The University of Illinois and holds a Bachelors in Electronics Engineering from the University of Mumbai. He is a programmer, a motivational writer and speaker.

7 thoughts on “Step-By-Step Guide To Write An Effective Website Tagline”

  1. susheel karam

    Please check my tagline.
    Techshiver – Sense the transforming technology

    Please reply about my tagline

  2. Krishna Moorthy.D

    Wow wow it’s it’s it’s an amazing article man.You just rocked.Very Very helpful for my new website which is going to be a brand 😉

  3. Sean DeSilva

    the number one issue I see with company tag lines is blandness. They want to be all things to all people and offend no one. As a result, the tagline becomes a variation of “we’re here to serve you” and the customer feels no impetus to move in a little closer.

  4. Ahammed Ajmal

    How’s my tag line.
    TechnologyEver – Technology is the future. Be updated.

  5. Nilantha Madhushanka

    Thanks Srikanth AN.

    I think this post is a very useful and good post.

    The name of the website and the tagline are the most important elements of a website. So, thanks for the show the way of writing an effective website tagline.

  6. Vikas Yadav

    To make any website success or failure, Tagline play a very important articles. A very handy and interesting tagline make the website viral in the blogosphere. I always choose a interest tagline that attract more and more visitors to my blog. A very big thanks for providing another articles on the shoutmeloud.com (I daily check more than 10+ times whether any new article is published or not for the last 6 days and today I have found it).

  7. Tanmoy Das

    Choosing a tag line for your blog or business is not easy as like designing a logo. But this well written article will surely help any blogger who will just start a new. I have blog name “Cyber Key” and its tag line “Key to cyber world”. I don’t know whether it’s good or bad. I just made it from my heart. By the way, thanks for the article.

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