In Blog Exercises: What is the Name of Your Site?, the Blog Exercise explored whether or not your site title was still appropriate for your site. Today’s exercise examines your tagline, the subtitle of your site.
Not all site designs or WordPress Themes display the tagline, but it is there under the hood. Search engines index it and display it in search results.
By default, all WordPress sites have the tagline “Just another WordPress site,” or, if you are on WordPress.com, it says, “Just another WordPress.com weblog.” It used to be “Just another WordPress blog.” A search for that on Google turns up over 276 million results including some famous and popular sites that should know better.
In 2008, I wrote about the proliferation of “Just Another WordPress blog” on the Blog Herald and it continues to amaze me that people miss this step in developing their WordPress sites.
Right now, if you are on WordPress, go to the WordPress Administration Panels and click Settings > General. At the top is your Site Title. Below that is the tagline. Check with your publishing platform on how to edit the tagline.
If still says “Just another…” change it to something more meaningful and representative of your blogging subject and purpose.
A tagline is the sub-title of your site. If your title is “Lorelle’s Blog,” the subtitle could be “Blogging the Day Away” or specifically identify the topics covered such as “WordPress and Blogging” or “Taking aim at idiots on the web,” which tells the reader that satire and irony can be found here. The tagline helps clarify the mission and purpose of your site.
Your exercise is to check your site’s tagline and change it to something more appropriate, whether or not it is visible within the site’s design.
Make sure it reflects the purpose and goals of your site.
You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.
Via Feedburner
Subscribe by Email
Lorelle on WordPress 
5 Comments
This is interesting. Your tagline is important. To me this was one of the most difficult things to decide on for my blogs. Here are my taglines – suggestions are welcome.
Bible Fascination – Getting to know the Bible better
Discover Bible Treasures – Imagine studying the Bible by landing between the verses and pages of the Bible as if it is a territory to be discovered.
Liz Strauss has the tagline “You are only a stranger once,” completely appropriate for her and for her blog dedicated to web publishing, social media, and business online, as well as community building, a critical part to what she does better than anyone. That was her father’s motto, a saloon keeper. She envisions her blog as a pub, the social center of a community where everyone comes to catch up on the day’s activity, talk about life, the universe, and everything, the glue that holds many communities together.
Having lived in the unholy land, as we and many who live there call it, I like the idea of the bible as a tourist. Maybe that’s what you are really trying to say with your tagline. Bible tourism. LOL!
Hi Lorelle,
I agree that a tagline is important but I think it’s also important to note that it can be changed, too. When someone refines their message or has a clearer vision of what their site is about, it’s easy to shake up the tagline, too. I changed mine recently but it was more of a “tweak” based on how people were searching for my site and not one I would have predicted after launching. Upon arrival at my site, my message is made even clearer with the header image.
Thanks, Lorelle, for keeping us on task and you should do a post about reminding people to change their copyright dates now that it’s the new year.
@Sara: Hey you! Nice to have you on board, neighbor!
The ability to not only set the tagline but change it is something we often forget, as with copyright dates. Good point. Most people use a copyright that changes with the year, but good point. I’ll put it on the list. Thanks!! Any others?
HI Lorelle., So good you emphasize on the importance of a title. Its the most basic requirement of every page on the internet. Especially if one is a blogger, you have got to know of seo basics no matter what oyu blog about.
5 Trackbacks/Pingbacks
[…] Blog Exercises: What’s Your Site’s Tagline? […]
[…] Blog Exercises: What’s Your Site’s Tagline? […]
[…] Taglines are an important, but all too often overlooked part of a successful blog site. Long time blogging/web writing professional and instructor to many a wayward bloggers, Lorelle VanFossen writes in her article, “Blog Exercises: What’s Your Site’s Tagline?“: […]
[…] next most important words are found in the site’s title and tagline, typically found in the masthead (header) of every site. The words are a promise of what is to […]
[…] Blog Exercises: What’s Your Site’s Tagline? […]