Many of these sites are making the costly mistake of omitting a tag line from the top banner. We see the name of the site dressed up in pretty graphics, but that may not sufficiently explain the line of business the company is in, what kinds of clients they serve and how they differ from competitors... in short, what they do and why do business with them.

First, let's look at a couple of sites that do this reasonably well. TechSoup.org tells you clearly what it's about and for whom in its tag line: "The Technology Place for Nonprofits." ClearwaterLandscapes.com's tag line, "Unique, Earth-Friendly and Affordable Garden Solutions," likewise conveys through a few carefully chosen words that it sells products for environmentally conscious gardeners.

When there's no tag line, the name of the site bears too much of the whole burden of orienting the reader. This made-up example illustrates the difficulty: GetPhysical.org. Without a tag line, you need to guess whether this site is devoted to improving physical fitness, encouraging lovemaking or getting regular medical checkups. If the art work suggests the first of those three possibilities, you still don't have an inkling who is behind the site and what their message is. But if the tag line says, "Enabling Elders to Exercise," you begin to have a pretty good clue.

Some web designers may believe that the headline on the home page is the proper location for the site's tag line. But this isn't wise, since many visitors arrive at an inner page of the site from a search engine rather than the home page. In addition, each page should begin with a headline appropriate to the contents of that page rather than have the same headline everywhere.

Don't make your web site visitor play guessing games! Use a tag line on your site to ground the visitor on what you do and to keep your business identity and message consistent from page to page to page.