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
What’s your website’s best selling point?
You might be thinking it’s the quality or price of your product, how your website is designed, or an effective landing page. While all these things certainly contribute to a sale, there is one feature that will put your business ahead of many others.
That feature is testimonials.
Testimonials are customer reviews of your business, product or service. It sums up your customer’s experience while working with you. It also adds validity to the promotional language you’re using on your website because it’s coming from someone who doesn’t make a profit from your sale.
Testimonials add authenticity and worth to your website for a number of reasons and can really help with website conversions.
Provides Social Proof
Social proof is always an effective weapon for your website. It shows new users that others have trusted and recommend your business. Testimonials offer social proof to new visitors.
Customers don’t always trust businesses. But they do trust other people just like them. That’s why testimonials work as social proof. Customers who have the same problem went to your company, and their problem was solved. Potential customers relate to that person who left a positive testimonial on your website.
PSD to WordPress uses its testimonial page to connect to new customers. The first thing you’ll notice is a big, high-quality photo of the customer who wrote the testimonial. Pictures of other customers help new ones relate on a human level. Words don’t have the same effect as another person’s face.
The customer also goes into great detail about how helpful the creative team of the company was. This positive quote with the friendly picture is a 1-2 punch of social proof.
Boosts Call-to-Action
Testimonials can be extremely beneficial when they’re used in an impactful way. Choosing where you place your testimonials can boost engagement. That’s why you should place a testimonial next to your call-to-action.
Utilizing a testimonial near a call-to-action is exactly what dapulse does. In fact, its testimonial is above its call-to-action. This means you have no choice but to read it before you create an account. The testimonial nicely leads users into the opt-in box by giving them a positive experience that reassures them they’re making the right decision.
Dapulse included a few things with its testimonial that makes it more impactful. One thing it did was include a picture of the person giving the testimonial. Once again, this is important because it builds a human connection between the user and the person who wrote the review. Next to the picture is that person’s company logo. This establishes the reviewer as an authority figure who needs to rely on this company.
Both the photo of the person and logo make the testimonial more meaningful. They allow new users to trust your company.
Highlights Experiences With Company
Testimonials boost your site’s worth because they share a customer’s experience with your company. The customer tells the story of what it was like to work with you. They’ll also share how well they liked your product or service.
This story is meaningful to potential customers. They want to see how your company helped other people just like them. Make sure you give former customers an opportunity to share their story.
You can accomplish this by making it very simple to write a testimonial. CJ Pony Parts’ website has a button at the top of the page labeled, “Write a Testimonial.” Anyone who has worked with the company can very easily write and submit their review of the company.
CJ Pony Parts also shows the number of testimonials that have been written. This number is a type of social proof. It shows new customers that 256 people have felt so passionately about this company that they’ve taken the time to write a positive testimonial. It shows the amount of user engagement, which is always a good sign for new visitors.
Testimonials boost your site’s worth by increasing user engagement and letting customers share their experience with your company. Both have a positive impact on your business.
Increases Conversion Rates
Testimonials can make users trust your company. They can reassure them before they choose to make any kind of commitment. Simply put, testimonials increase conversions. They especially increase conversion when they’re placed where users can see them. Placing testimonials high on your website leads to a 64.53% increase in downloads.
ChowNow places two types of testimonials at the top of its page. One is a quote about its service. That quote sits on top of a video. New users will be curious to see what that video consists of after reading the quote. The number of clicks on the video most likely increases due to the addition of the testimonial.
Put your testimonials front and center so customers can see them and choose to take action.
Customers Are Your Business
The customer is more than always right. They’re your entire business. Use their reviews and testimonials to ensure positive experiences for new customers.
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.