How to write the Best Tagline for your homepage
Write a key introductory line on your landing page
You have less than a second to grab your website visitors’ attention. That is right, less than a second. According to CrazzEgg when visiting your site, a user decides whether to hit the “back button” within milliseconds. Which means that you need to introduce yourself in an attractive way on your homepage, fast. Audible uses this simple yet effective stratergy.
Most websites use both images and text content to help visitors understand how they will benefit from reading more. You need to use that less than a second attention-grabbing window to visually & textually communicate your key message on your home or landing pages.
Although studies show that visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text in our heads, text converts visual speculation into a clear message leading to action. Text is easily crawled by search engine bots too, making your website internet-friendly. Having said this, we still somehow manage to get it all wrong, leading to a higher bounce rate. So what is the solution to this?
What to write to describe your organization?
Such a simple question, yet a lot of us get it wrong more often than we would like. This should be the easiest thing to do, but so many people get it wrong. Why? Because EXPERTS!
As a business owner, you might engage a skillful writer for your content, and rightly so. However, experienced ones may complicate things. If it was left to business owners or 6-year-olds, they will probably do a better job writing a one-liner about the work without reviewing any examples.
Dyson displaying their product with simple description.
But in-come highly paid content developers, and things go south. This does not mean that business owners will get it right all the time either. If the business owner is a technical expert, writing may not be their thing. In which case they might ignore their instinct and try to say things like an expert, but we all know where that is heading.
Being a business owner, it is so clear to you as to what you do, however it becomes hard to articulate it in one or a few lines. The most difficult for us is on the homepage of your website. Many organizations struggle with choosing what to say on the landing page of your website, and mistakes are costly — your visitors don’t understand what you do at a glance. This shoos them away to your competition. Poor message on your landing pages, or the about us page may lead to a poor conversion rate.
MISTAKES WE MAKE
We assume too many things. Number one is if people come to my website they will read my content. This can be the case only if they find what you have written interesting. But in many cases, we lose them on the first line and they don’t read any further.
The second assumption is people already know where they have landed, so a vague statement will make sense to them. This is far from the truth, and vague statements like “we solve problems” on an interior design landing page will only turn visitors into bounce rate stats. All businesses solve problems, so this line does not tell anyone anything about your specific line of work. It may make sense in a later part of the description.
One such example is the old look of Roofing R Us. It’s defined but is still too vague.
All of us want to solve problems in our lives and business, but usually we look for a specific solution at a time.
The third most common assumption is that if we give an appealing slogan like “we’re the best in town” people will be inquisitive and will read more. All of these things add to the vagueness of our business statements. Resulting in customers lost and going to your competitors. You could be the best plumber in town, but your messages did not make it clear, did it? Introductions like we provide business solutions are the enemy of your conversion rate. Don’t delegate unnecessary work to your clients — giving them textual puzzles to figure out is work. Such slogans can’t confirm if you sell ink or provide recruitment service, and both are very important business solutions.
SOLUTION
So what is the best way to start your message when selling a service?
Be brave:
Say what you mean, and don’t be shy about it. Tell people what you really do. Don’t try to sugarcoat it, or turn it into a full brainier. People don’t like it, and may often feel that you’re trying to hide something. Having a brave approach will lead to better trust-building. Just like memrise did with their headline.
If you sell pancakes, say you sell pancakes:
Don’t beat around the bush about what you do just because you have writing space available or because you want to sound like a corporate. For example, if you are in the business of providing BPO services, say we’re a business process outsourcing company instead of “providing seamless business solutions to corporates”. The second sounds more like a claim, which you can put that in the description later. So, if you sell pancakes, say you sell pancakes. A great example here would be of Google Drive.
Be very clear and crisp:
All businesses have a lot of depth to them. And the passion of business owners makes it hard for them to leave anything behind. For them, everything is important and must be communicated on page 1. But their passion is unfortunately never shared by their consumers, who are busy with their lives in their own struggles. Therefore, a clear and crisp sales tagline helps a lot. Ordinary but clear always trumps creative but vague, therefore be confident and just state what you do straight up. Being creative is an advantage, not the aim.
A GREAT MESSAGE:
An effective message will include all or some of this information in any order:
1- What
2- Whom for
3- The benefit
4- And who
As in, what is on offer, who is selling, who is it useful for, and what is the benefit.
A comprehensive example if you sell pancakes:
Tagline: Preparing the hottest pancakes in town
SubText: Beat your hunger with an energy-packed slice of our finest pancakes
If you’ve been selling pancakes for a decade, then in that case you can add “Beating hunger with pancakes for over 10 years:” to your tagline (the ‘who’ part).
CONCLUSION
Clearly, writing a tagline is easier than most would think. We complicate it by trying to do something greater than what it really is. A catchy, easy to remember catchphrase can help, however it should not be the only goal. Being simple works just as good. Sometimes being over-ambitious becomes the main hurdle. We have only a second to impress web surfers. Keep your message clear and crisp, so readers have time to absorb it, reflect and get engaged with your content. Give users information in small doses, and you shall get a greater response.
Hope this helps,
Write a comment below with your thoughts.
