Client testimonials are one of the most powerful forms of promotion. People are much more likely to listen to the thoughts of someone they consider a peer than what your company has to say about your own service or product. Testimonials lend credibility to your site and show your focus on customer service.
About 88 percent of consumers trust an online review as much as a personal recommendation from a friend or family member. Adding testimonials to your website adds credibility and a level of trust.
You can highlight client testimonials in many different ways. Here are eight things to consider, along with some examples of sites using testimonials in powerful ways.
1. Ask for Testimonials
Your first step is gathering client testimonials. Simply ask your current clients if they’d be willing to write a testimonial for you. Have a few guidelines in place, but remember that you can always take too many words and edit them down, so don’t limit your clients if they want to sing your praises.
Have a few sample client testimonials on hand and share them with those who agree to provide you with one. Gather as many different types of testimonials as possible.
2. Design the Testimonial
If the client offers a testimonial, they may send you a rough draft of what they’d like to say. A great testimonial focuses on a specific product or example of excellent service. Narrow down the focus by asking the client specific questions about situations you know they’ve faced with your company. For instance, if you have a resolved customer service complaint and the client is now your best customer, ask them to tell the story of how your company fixed their problem.
The focus of the testimonial should be narrow and honed in on what makes your company stand out from your competitors.
Bluebeam offers a client testimonials page where they highlight particular things the company helped its customers solve, such as saving a construction company $50,000 and enabling a mechanical firm to compete with much larger companies in their industry.
3. Place Testimonials on Landing Pages
Testimonials can appear in several different areas of the website, but they’re more powerful in some locations than others. To decide where to place yours, think about the purpose of the testimonial you’re featuring. If the testimonial is more generic and talking about the advantages of doing business with your company or your customer service advantages, then the landing page is a good location. If a new site visitor reads or watches reviews about your product, they are 58 percent more likely to convert into customers.
4. Add a Testimonial to a Photo Gallery
Your sales funnel has a few different levels. Someone who goes to your photo gallery and views other projects you’ve completed is at the mid-point of your funnel. They want more information and are seriously considering whether or not to hire you to do the work. This is your opportunity to convince them by offering reviews and testimonials from your current customers.
Cornwell Door Service adds a testimonial at the bottom of the photo gallery images along with a photo of the finished job. The client explains the process of choosing their new garage doors and how happy they are with the finished result. The testimonial shows anyone on the fence that the process is easy and enjoyable and pushes them onward to the next phase of the sales funnel.
5. Sprinkle Testimonials Throughout Blog Content
Another technique for highlighting testimonials on your website is sprinkling them throughout your blog content. Keep in mind that visitors might land on a blog post page and never see your home page or your testimonials page. Adding testimonials within the posts themselves allows you to sprinkle in reviews without the visitor bouncing away to another page.
Blog post testimonials should be highly relevant to the topic under discussion. Don’t plug in a testimonial for Product A if the article focuses on a problem Product B solves.
6. Invite Users to Share Their Reviews
Engage your customers by inviting them to share their reviews of your products and brand easily. Include a call to action (CTA) button that encourages them to write a review. Put their reviews front and center, so other potential clients see you aren’t afraid of what your current customers have to say. Reviews help drive sales and attract new customers.
Sydney City Toyota features client reviews on their landing page with a sharp image and the number of stars the person rated them. Click on any of the reviews, and you’ll get more details about their testimonial and an option to “write your own review.”
7. Share Testimonials on Social Media
Testimonials also give you another piece of content for social media sharing. However, the end goal should be to either convert that traffic into newsletter subscribers or drive them to your website. Social media controls followers, with sites such as Facebook now charging to push content in front of your own subscribers. A better use of your social media efforts is driving traffic to your online real estate.
8. Place Beside CTAs
You’ve honed your CTA to perfection. The wording is just right, the color of the button contrasts with the rest of the landing page and you know the placement grabs attention. Add a short testimonial next to that perfected CTA to help convert people into clients. It’s a small bit of information that will help them make the final decision to buy your product or service.
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Using Your Testimonials
Make it easy for visitors to find your customer testimonials. They shouldn’t have to search deep into your site to find a specific page of reviews. Instead, they should see testimonials sprinkled throughout your site with clear links to additional details on what others think about your brand.
author:
Lexie Lu is a designer and writer. She loves researching trends in the web and graphic design industry. She writes weekly on Design Roast and can be followed on Twitter @lexieludesigner