After an amazing year of blogging and an exciting first blogoversary, I’ve been thinking a lot about ways I can improve and expand this blog.
While I absolutely love my home here at Blogger, I think it may be time for me to step it up and move to my own domain.
The Idea
I already own the domain https://jessicalawlor.com. It currently serves as my personal portfolio to house my resume, writing samples, recommendations and freelance services. I was heavily using this site when I was searching for a job this past spring. Now that I’m happily employed, I’d love to move this blog over to my main website to keep all of my content in one place.
The Problem
I absolutely love my website design on my personal website. I love the Jessica Lawlor header; it’s totally me. However, I also love my blogs header and title: Cover to Cover. However, if I move all of this content over to jessicalawlor.com, the title Cover to Cover has to go because I want to keep the Jessica Lawlor header. I am multi-passionate. I want to combine all of my interests under this one blog: I want to brand myself as a book blogger, an aspiring author, a freelance writer and a communicator who can offer PR services. Lucky for me, all of my passions do go hand in hand; I’m just struggling with a way to communicate this all on one website so as not to turn away other book bloggers or communicators.
Here’s Where You Come In
I’d like to come up with a new tagline to replace the current “PR-Writing-Social Media” to one that encompasses all of my interests. I want the tagline to let readers know that if they are looking for book reviews, author interviews, thoughts about the writing process and publishing, as well as social media and PR advice and commentary, they have come to the right place. I realize this is a daunting task to come up with a tagline that covers so much ground, but that’s why I’m asking you! I’ve been rolling this over in my head for the past few months and my goal is to have the new site up and running by September 1.
The Giveaway
Please leave your ideas for my new tagline or any other idea you have about how to make my blog transition work. You can leave one idea or you can leave 10! Before September 1 (though I may extend this giveaway, if needed!), I will choose a tagline and the winner of the tagline I choose will win a $20 Amazon gift card.
How to enter:
-Leave a comment with a tagline suggestion
-Include your e-mail address
Please feel free to tweet and blog about this contest! I’d love all the input I can get to make this blog even better. Once I make the big switch, I’ll be hosting another giveaway to celebrate the re-launch of my blog! Go for it, everyone. I’m so excited to hear what you think!
Could you do jessicalawlor.com/blog as the URL and then redirect it to this blog – keeping the same design.
Maybe: Blogger – PR – Social Media
Or, Book Blogger – PR – Social Media
Good luck with the transition!!
Sharing the journey
Lets try this again. I think combining it all together is a great idea. I think it's tough to maintain multiple blogs and keep the two parts of your life separate. I think you could definitely keep the layout on Jessica Lawlor the way it is – use the first page to explain that you are at a new point in your life and wanted a new way to express yourself all in one place.. yada yada. I think you could then use a tab for your PR, a tab for Writing and tab for your book reviews and interviews. I think the main thing I like about having all of this on one blog is that these are all your passions. If your workplace is anything like mine, when people find out you have a book blog, they will want to read it. Why not have it all in one place? And in the future, if you would put your blog on your resume, I don't even know if people do that, you never know, your interviews and book blogs may be the ones that give you the one up because it shows you can do a lot.
Here are my ideas for your tagline:
Jessica Lawlor
Reading, Writing and PR – Together at Last
Jessica Lawlor
Reader, Writer and PR Queen (puts a fun twist to it)
Jessica Lawlor
The Life of Read, Writer and PR Princess (this is my favorite)
I'm sure I will come up with more. I am totally backing you in this move! And honestly, if you try it and don't like it, you can go back to Cover to Cover if it doesn't work. Hope I helped!
Jessica,
I really like what you're trying to do here with taking control of your brand. There are a couple of ways you can go about this.
Moving your blog from its current address will cause you to lose all of your link authority and all that SEO goodness you gained over the last year. Since your personal site is built on thesis, I know you can actually create a link on your navigation bar pointing to your blog, like I did on my personal site.
Adding your blog to your personal site, however, will dramatically help that content get found since search engines love blogs. Since that's where you list your resume and services it probably is a good idea to keep everything there.
If you have any questions on how to do any of that, feel free to shoot me an email. I'm not an expert with thesis or wordpress yet, but I'm getting there 🙂
For your tagline, here are a few ideas:
– Blogger, Expert Communicatior, & Aspiring Author
– A Freelance Writer with a Knack for PR
– An Aspiring Author with a Passion for PR
– Passionate Writer, PR Pro, & Future Author
I think that you might be trying to stretch yourself a bit thin by branding yourself with a tagline combining book reviews, author interviews, writing advice, and social media and PR tips. Basically, it comes down to what your essential passion is. You are clearly an aspiring author. But think – how does branding yourself as such *help* your readers. It doesn't. You are a writer. Hmm, so maybe fellow writers can relate to you. They can seek advice and guidance. Getting closer to *helping* your audience. Getting warmer. Constantly be thinking like this! You review books. Love it. Useful to literary types. Books and writing go hand in hand, duh. Social media is the online PR, so that's done, anddd done. Considering that publishing lives and dies by an author's online presence, you have an incredible "in" right there. You could brand yourself as a book blogger and author promoter. Maybe something like "Novel Ideas – Interviews and Reviews" -sub-title "Writing and promotion tips and tricks from the best sources on the web" or something similar. plus tips and tricks for online promotion" This sounds like it encompasses all the elements you're searching to cover. By getting to the heart of what you want to accomplish – ie. helping others connect with great reads while getting in some great experience learning how you want to write your own novels etc some day, everyone wins. And you are an authentic blogger.
Thoughts?!
– Wendy
@WendyJPray on Twitter
Hey Jessica, looks like you are getting a lot of great ideas here. I had some thoughts too – as for the header, I forgot about a great little thread of CSS text that allows you to have different headers on different pages. You're blog could "Jessica Lawlor: Cover to Cover" instead of just Jessica Lawlor (which is what it would be for all other pages). That would help differientiate the professional aspect (as a PR pro, freelance searching, etc) of you professional as well as keep the personal side of you open.
My favorite tagline so far is " An Aspiring Author with a Passion for PR" suggested by Steve C above but I would add Social Media in there too.
Hi just checking out your blog 😉
joanna_102693(at)hotmail(dot)com
blog:
http://pinkangel1026.blogspot.com/
GREAT idea to get everything under your URL and in one place. I'm moving my blog to alexisgrant.com for the same reason. Keep me posted on what you decide!
Some taglines:
-Words with a vision
-Where words and function meet
-Blogging, Reading, and crafted words
-An aspiring author with a knack for connections
-PR communications and writing with a healthy dose of books
-PR specialist, writer, and book lover
You can contact me at
thompsonsydnee(at)gmail.com