How to Write a Kickbutt Blog Tagline + a Worksheet

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Could your blog header be sending people away?

There’s lots of blogs out there with cute, creative-sounding names. And while they may be catchy, if there’s nothing in the name that tells a person what the blog is about, it could be driving people away.

Suppose you came across a blog whose name was “Sunshiney Days” (i made that up) and there was no tagline in the header. What would you assume the blog to be about?

Someone with a happy life? Happiness amidst depression? Living in the Sunshine State? A blog about Johnny Nash? Kinda hard to tell right?

That’s why you need a tagline. A clearly written tagline is so important to your blog’s success! Now that you can see clearly now (see what I did there? 😉 ) let’s talk a little about how to write a nice, catchy blog tagline that helps to tell people what your blog is all about.

What’s a Tagline?

A tagline is like a slogan, you know that catchy little phrase that helps you remember a product? Like, “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand” (M&M’s) and “It’s everywhere you want to be” (Visa). While a slogan describes a product, a tagline helps people remember your brand. It helps to define what your blog is about, who it’s for, and why people should stick around and read it.

The tagline is a one-liner that sums up how you can help your audience. It should be short, powerful and to the point. There should be no question of what you offer after someone reads it. And the tagline should be prominent in your header and appear directly below or next to your logo/brand name.

How to Create a Kickbutt Tagline for Your Blog

The Who, What and How

First we have to ask ourselves a few important questions. Click the yellow box to download the worksheet and follow along. I’ll use my own blog as an example in italics.

What is Your Mission?

What is your personal mission for your blog? Is it to help certain people, inform them, inspire them? Why do you want to help them? What do you aim to do? Why do you do what you do? What excites you about what you write?

My personal mission for DYOB is to help creative women to build the businesses of their dreams to not only support their families but to have the flexibility and time to raise a fantastic, well-adjusted family. I want all women (including myself) to have this so that we don’t have to continuously struggle to find work/family-life balance.

Who is Your Audience?

Get really specific here. Get down to gender, age, number of kids, occupation, etc. It’s best to have a specific person in mind.

I serve creative female solopreneurs and bloggers who want to create a professional online appearance that matches their unique personality and brand.

What Will You Offer Them?

How do you plan to help others? What are their pains and how will you help them? Offerings include your free content and products or services you sell.

I offer tutorials, tools, feedback and inspiration that helps women actually design and customize their own blogs.

How Will What You Offer Be Different?

What makes YOU different from everyone else that talks about the same thing? What can you do better or differently? What benefit(s) can you provide your readers/customers that they can’t obtain elsewhere? You can start by asking yourself, “What feeling(s) do I want my audience to experience when they read my blog?” Is it relief? Excitement? Understanding? Inspiration?

I offer friendly and step-by-step support and feedback. I share trends and inspiration to help them become better designers. I also focus on both WordPress and Blogger platforms. I want my audience to experience relief that they’ve found the right help and be inspired and confident to take on their own blog designs.

What is Your Brand’s Personality?

We want to identify what our brand’s personality is because it will help us determine in which tone we should write our message.

Is your brand empowering, friendly, classy, silly, bold and/or sarcastic? Infuse your own personality as it will come through in your writing.

The DYOB brand is Knowledgable, Empowering and Classy. Its personality is Helpful, Approachable and Creative.

Writing a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) Statement

First, let’s start by combining our answers above into a short paragraph.
For example:

I am a web designer, blogger and mom who helps creative female solopreneurs create beautiful online appearances that match their unique work and personalities through supportive, friendly feedback and helpful step-by-step tutorials, guides and courses. I do it because I want women to build the businesses of their dreams that allow them to simultaneously support and raise fantastic families like I am working towards.

Now let’s turn that into a shorter, more impactful statement, the USP.
Here’s a great formula that I learned from Michael Hyatt’s Platform University, and it’s simply brilliant so I didn’t change a thing.

I am a [your professional identity, e.g., author, speaker, blogger, coach, etc.].
I help [your target audience],
do/understand [your unique solution],
so that [your promised transformation].

Here’s my example:
“I am a web designer, blogger and mom. I teach creative female solopreneurs how to create a beautiful and professional online experience so that they can take their business to the next level.”

Writing a Powerful Tagline

Finally we get to write our blog’s tagline. When writing your own tagline, you want to take your USP and scrunch it down into a short but powerful statement that describes the essence of your brand.

You’ll end up cutting out quite a bit from your USP and that’s ok. Writing the USP helps YOU get clear on what your brand is about and what you offer. It’s also a great statement to place in your sidebar bio, the top of your about page, and in your social media bios.

Here are a couple of tips to keep in mind:

• Try to begin the tagline with a verb. It’s more powerful that way.
• Brainstorm some keywords. Take SEO into consideration when writing your tagline as it will certainly be a part of your meta data which is indexed by Google.
• Keep it to 60 characters or less.*
• Use powerful words if possible that show you as an expert in your field, words that imply that you are or have the best solution. Words like master, mentor, excellence, etc.
• Keep it simple and easy to understand. Don’t be clever unless it’s really obvious. If people have to try and figure out what you mean, they’ll move on.
• Some more great tips to keep in mind when writing your tagline.

* “Google typically displays the first 50-60 characters of a title tag, or as many characters as will fit into a 512-pixel display. If you keep your titles under 55 characters, you can expect at least 95% of your titles to display properly.” – Moz

Here’s my tagline:
Learn to Beautify Your Blog DIY-Style

Until recently it was just “Beautify Your Blog DIY-Style,” but I added the words “Learn to” to make it more obvious that this is a teaching blog, not a place where I will do it for you. There are plenty of designers for hire out there, I am not one of them at this time.

Additional Reading:

Check out this article on famous brand taglines from Hubspot. It’s helpful to see their flops and successes and to keep them in mind when thinking about your own blog tagline.
How to Create a Rock-Solid Tagline That Truly Works from Copyblogger.

Does Your Tagline Fit Your Brand?

1. Download the worksheet and start writing your own USP and tagline.
2. Now run your tagline through the questions and tips above. Does it fit you, your business, your audience and your mission? Does it clearly explain what you do or offer? Does it begin with a verb? Is it short, powerful and to the point?
3. If not, you may need to spend a little more time on it. Run it by some people and get some feedback. A great way to do this is to share your blog’s name and tagline in a new post in the Facebook community for feedback. Resist the urge to explain what your blog is about and see if people “get it.” This is going to be fun! See you in there!

Over to You

Do you have a tagline? If so, have you run it through the questions above? How did it do? If you don’t have a tagline, what’s keeping you from having one? I’d love to know, leave a comment below.

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