WEB DESIGN -- Slogans and Taglines

Slogans

The slogan on the header of this website is "Enabling website excellence for Christ". Does your website have an effective slogan?

Taglines

A tagline is a subtitle for your website, intended to tell visitors who you are, what you do, and how you're different from all the other similar organizations. The tagline can be a brief welcome message built into your nameplate header displayed on all the pages of your website. Or it can be displayed just on the home page as the first item below your site heading. The first paragraph on the homepage of this AWA7.org is our tagline. It is displayed in bold blue font for emphasis.

Church and school sites typically identify who they are in the title of their organization. But visitors will tend to lump them in with all the other churches or schools out there, unless they have a concise, memorable tagline that accurately describes their unique mission. Every organization should have a good slogan or tagline!

Poor Examples

The hypothetical Adventist church congregation could choose a tagline like:

 - We're all things to all people

 - Evangelism, health, family, theology, community services, inreach, outreach

Visitors will react to this type of inflated tagline by mentally downgrading the site's credibility. Even a church with a wide variety of programs won't be served well by this type of tagline.

A tagline saying "We specialize in excellence" may be true, but it communicates nothing about the organization.

It is better to have no tagline than one that is generic, stupid, boring, or inflated.

Crafting a Good Tagline

Break out your mission statement. Ask to see mission statements from similar organizations. Which ones linger in your memory after you've read them? Which mission statements paint a clear picture of the organization?

Collect taglines from other similar and related sites (e.g. churches, schools, ministries). Examine each of them to see if you can tell what their focus is. Can you tell them apart by the tagline alone? Review the taglines with others and ask them the same questions.

Now look at whatever text you have written on your home page about your website or organization. Rewrite each entry to say exactly the opposite (don't post this exercise). Would any similar organization say these things? If not, then these entries on your home page are probably not useful for crafting your tagline. As you develop your tagline, try saying the opposite to help evaluate it's effectiveness.

What A Slogan and Tagline Should Be

A slogan or tagline should be:

- Memorable

- Identifies a key benefit

- Differentiating

- Imparts a positive feeling

- Reflects the organization's personality

- Strategic

- Campaignable

- Competitive

- Original

- Simple

- Neat

- Believable

- Concise

A Few Examples

Here are a few examples:

- Customer care and billing solutions

- You are in good hands with Allstate

- Fly the friendly skies

- Leave the driving to us

- Reach out and touch someone

- Absolutely, positively overnight

- Center for the study of ethics in the professions

- Codes of ethics online

- Search the largest inventory of cars and trucks on the Internet

- Supporting the expansion of affordable housing in America