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The humble but important profile tagline
Thread poster: Enrique Manzo
Enrique Manzo
Enrique Manzo
SITE STAFF
Nov 13, 2017

Question: What is short, to the point, and can help you land your next client?

Answer: A good tagline.


Having a complete, strong online profile that accurately represents you as a professional is an important part of the winning strategies that increase your chances at new client contact (these strategies work both on and off the ProZ.com site).

Since most client contact
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Question: What is short, to the point, and can help you land your next client?

Answer: A good tagline.


Having a complete, strong online profile that accurately represents you as a professional is an important part of the winning strategies that increase your chances at new client contact (these strategies work both on and off the ProZ.com site).

Since most client contact on ProZ.com goes through the directory, you need to make sure you are catching the eye of the clients you seek from the directory results. This is where a good tagline comes in.

Your tagline is one of the key pieces of information shown in directory results. It is a one-liner that can interest a potential client in jumping from the directory to your profile, to see more about what you have to offer. Having no tagline means you lose some of your competitive edge. Having a poorly-constructed tagline can work against you.

So what makes a good tagline?

Let’s start by looking at what you probably shouldn’t do with your tagline. A good client expects you to be professional, to be on time, to deliver quality, right? So why would you include these givens in your tagline? “Reliable, never late!” is the kind of tagline that may actually raise red flags for a serious client seeking language service providers. Including your language pair in your tagline is OK, but consider that wherever a client sees your tagline (the directory or your profile), your language pair is also shown, and if the client is viewing you from a directory search, it most likely included the language pair, so that is something he/she already knows.

Focus instead on what makes you stand out. Do you have a special certification, either in translation or in one of your fields? Are you a medical translator with actual medical experience? Are the number of years you have been working in your field something that sets you apart? These are the kinds of information to consider including in your tagline. Here are a few examples, and how they look from the directory:





Let’s picture your profile page as a shop. Some shops are better tended than others, they might have more products to show, better lighting and be closer to a main street. A client walking down this street may not want to lose time entering each and every shop to see what they are selling. Instead, they will look at the storefront and try to figure out if that’s the shop they are looking for.

These taglines work because they contain specific information that a potential client might be looking for while searching the directory. In other words, they are inviting the client to enter and visit your profile. If your tagline was consistent with what you have to show on your profile page, then it is likely that potential clients will consider using your services.


Tailor your taglines to the clients you want to market to, in their languages

How many times have you wished you could show your tagline in more than just one language?

One of the most important things to take into account when designing an effective tagline is imagining a potential audience. Just take a moment to think who you are addressing your tagline to. There’s nothing more distinctive in a language workplace than the language your potential clients work on. This is why writing your tagline in several languages makes so much sense.

ProZ.com is now giving you the possibility to localize your tagline in different languages. This way whenever a potential client sees your profile in the directory, you will be able to send a more targeted message to them.


Screen Shot 2017-11-17 at 8.00.12 AM



You can find this new feature in the Personalization section of your Profile Updater.



I hope you find this information useful and please comment and let me know what you think about the new taglines!

Regards,

Enrique Manzo
ProZ.com Staff
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Henry Dotterer
Henry Dotterer
Local time: 14:36
SITE FOUNDER
To put it simply... Nov 15, 2017

The tagline is the only bit of text that you can control in directory search results. (So yeah, it is important! So much so that if you don't have one, you may have a bad experience in meeting clients at ProZ.com!)

Also, if you work from English into French, or French into English, it is well worth putting in taglines in both French and English. For the French-speaking client, you will be speaking to them in their own language. Makes a big difference.


Aaed Masood
 
Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:36
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
thanks for the heads-up! Nov 15, 2017

Just added mine:

Capture

Michael


 
Thomas T. Frost
Thomas T. Frost  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 18:36
Danish to English
+ ...
Good feature – small bug Nov 15, 2017

That's a good feature, thanks.

Is it intentional that if you start typing something, then navigate to another window on your computer for information or reference, then Proz has already saved the text when I return to the Proz windows, even though I did not hit enter to save the text? It doesn't seem to be a good idea, in any case.


 
Thomas T. Frost
Thomas T. Frost  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 18:36
Danish to English
+ ...
Another bug: accented characters and certain punctuation counted as more than one character Nov 15, 2017

The tagline can have a maximum of 40 characters, it says, but if I enter a tagline longer than 38 characters, the system tells me to enter a smaller tagline. I need the last two characters. 40 isn't much already.

Edited:

The system accepted my Danish tagline, which has 40 characters: "It-specialist med international erfaring", but it rejects the English tagline if I enter "IT specialist – international experience", which also has 40 characters.

If I use a
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The tagline can have a maximum of 40 characters, it says, but if I enter a tagline longer than 38 characters, the system tells me to enter a smaller tagline. I need the last two characters. 40 isn't much already.

Edited:

The system accepted my Danish tagline, which has 40 characters: "It-specialist med international erfaring", but it rejects the English tagline if I enter "IT specialist – international experience", which also has 40 characters.

If I use a hyphen instead of an en-dash, it is accepted, but it's not correct to use a hyphen as a dash.

The tagline in French: "Spécialiste IT expérience internationale", which is also 40 characters long, is also rejected. If I spell it wrong: "Specialiste IT experience internationale", it is accepted.

You seem to have a problem with anything else than the 26 characters of the English alphabet and the most common punctuation.



[Edited at 2017-11-15 23:02 GMT]

[Edited at 2017-11-15 23:15 GMT]
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Thomas T. Frost
Thomas T. Frost  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 18:36
Danish to English
+ ...
Related: why does it say "NA" under my tagline? Nov 15, 2017

Capture

What on earth is the visitor supposed to do with "NA"? It doesn't even tell the visitor what is "NA" – which is correctly written "n/a", by the way.

I suppose it's where the country goes, but I have chosen not to display my country of residence, because it has very little to do with the languages I can translate, and it is misleading when it comes to working hours.


 
..... (X)
..... (X)
Local time: 03:36
Thanks for the feedback Thomas Nov 16, 2017

Thomas T. Frost wrote:

That's a good feature, thanks.

Is it intentional that if you start typing something, then navigate to another window on your computer for information or reference, then Proz has already saved the text when I return to the Proz windows, even though I did not hit enter to save the text? It doesn't seem to be a good idea, in any case.


Thanks for pointing this out. It has now been updated so it only saves upon hitting 'enter'.

Thomas T. Frost wrote:
Another bug: accented characters and certain punctuation counted as more than one character

The tagline can have a maximum of 40 characters, it says, but if I enter a tagline longer than 38 characters, the system tells me to enter a smaller tagline. I need the last two characters. 40 isn't much already.


This is fixed now. Thanks for reporting.

Thomas T. Frost wrote:
Related: why does it say "NA" under my tagline?

What on earth is the visitor supposed to do with "NA"? It doesn't even tell the visitor what is "NA" – which is correctly written "n/a", by the way.


Thanks for reporting this. "NA" has been removed and nothing will appear on your profile in that spot if you choose to not show your country.


 
Oksana Weiss
Oksana Weiss  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 19:36
Member (2011)
German to English
+ ...
Thanks a lot! Nov 16, 2017

The tagline is really important and it's good to have it in all working languages.

 
Randa Farhat
Randa Farhat  Identity Verified
Lebanon
Local time: 20:36
English to Arabic
+ ...
Tagline invisible! Nov 16, 2017

Hello,

My tagline no longer appears when searching the directory. I had tried to edit it and to add it in another language but it disappeared altogether. So, I've put it back as before and hit 'enter' to save. It saves but doesn't show in the general en-ar directory any more! https://www.proz.com/english-to-arabic-translators

[Edited at 2017-11-16 08:14 GMT]


 
..... (X)
..... (X)
Local time: 03:36
@R Farhat Nov 16, 2017

R Farhat wrote:

Hello,

My tagline no longer appears when searching the directory. I had tried to edit it and to add it in another language but it disappeared altogether. So, I've put it back as before and hit 'enter' to save. It saves but doesn't show in the general en-ar directory any more! https://www.proz.com/english-to-arabic-translators

[Edited at 2017-11-16 08:14 GMT]


Thanks for reporting this issue. It should now be fixed with your tagline showing in the general en-ar directory.


 
Thomas T. Frost
Thomas T. Frost  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 18:36
Danish to English
+ ...
Thanks Nov 16, 2017

Thanks for fixing the bugs so quickly, Kevin. It all works now.

 
Alistair Gainey
Alistair Gainey  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:36
Russian to English
Russian Nov 16, 2017

The Russian tagline in the OP doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

 
Thomas T. Frost
Thomas T. Frost  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 18:36
Danish to English
+ ...
What does it mean? Nov 16, 2017

Alistair Gainey wrote:

The Russian tagline in the OP doesn't exactly inspire confidence.


Would you perhaps care to enlighten us ignoramuses who don't speak Russian? It can't be copied and pasted into Google Translate.

[Edited at 2017-11-16 14:47 GMT]


 
Henry Dotterer
Henry Dotterer
Local time: 14:36
SITE FOUNDER
Thanks, Alistair Nov 16, 2017

Alistair Gainey wrote:

The Russian tagline in the OP doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

Thanks. We'll change the screenshot (which is out of date anyway).


 
Henry Dotterer
Henry Dotterer
Local time: 14:36
SITE FOUNDER
Fun article on writing taglines Nov 16, 2017

I saw this interesting article on writing taglines: https://econsultancy.com/blog/6829-17-tips-for-creating-a-great-website-tagline

 
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The humble but important profile tagline






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