What’s the first thing you do when looking for a recommendation? Whether deciding on a new restaurant or looking for someone to replace your roof, when you need a recommendation, you tend to turn to those around you. You ask friends, family, and even strangers online by ways of reviews. This process is no different when someone is deciding who they should invest in for online services. Therefore, it’s crucial to ensure you have strong client testimonials on your site that impress and attract prospective clients or customers.
Importance of Client Testimonials
We all love positive feedback and praise, but client testimonials are more than just showing off compliments of your work. Before we dive into why they’re important, let’s provide clarifications on what exactly a testimonial is and is not.
A testimonial is specifically meant to help elevate your brand and company. It does this by having specific clients or customers essentially endorse your services or product, unlike a review, which can come from anywhere and isn’t always in line with your company’s vision.
Building Trust
Client testimonials are an extremely important component to building up trust with future customers. Typically, people don’t like to try something that has never been tried before, and hiring a company is no different. By providing testimonials from other people who have used your services, you’re building trust with potential clients. They help create a comfort level among people who know that others have made the same investment and are happy with the results. The stronger the testimonials, the faster that trust will be built.
Brand Reputation
Including client testimonials as part of your site helps to paint a picture of your brand and values. They confirm you are a reliable company someone can trust to provide the services you promote. In addition, they can help attract the type of client that you feel may fit well with your brand. If you have high-quality testimonials from reputable sources on your site, it will illustrate your type of clients and reflect back onto your prospective clients.
SEO
Testimonials can also play a role in helping elevate your site’s SEO. If possible, ensure the client testimonial includes keyword rich context. This will help when others are searching for similar information, and your site’s testimonials appear in the search results. Since people are known to trust earned media (like testimonials) over paid advertising, you’re more likely to attract visitors.
Now that we understand the importance of testimonials, there a few ways to go about acquiring them and ensure they’re featured in the most effective way possible.
Acquiring Testimonials
There are a variety of ways to go about receiving effective client testimonials. Any of the the following are relevant; it just depends what works best for your company.
Ask the Customer Directly
Sometimes the best way is just to directly ask a customer, who you feel have you built a strong relationship with, for a client testimonial. When asking a customer directly, there are a few things to keep in mind:
- Keep it as simple and easy as possible. If you make it too difficult, you’ll most likely get no response at all or just get a quick, nonchalant response. It can be helpful to provide specific questions or ask them about a specific point.
- Ask for a testimonial at various points throughout the life cycle of the service you provided or their purchasing experience. If you’re looking for a testimonial to highlight a certain point of your service or product, ask them soon after completion of the service or receipt of product.
- Remember, testimonials can come from anyone that has interacted with you or your product. Anyone that has developed a relationship with your team can provide valuable information.
Landing Page or Form on Your Site
- Integrate a page on your site specifically for testimonials, which users can return to and fill out at anytime.
- Include the link to your landing page or form in newsletters or follow-up -mails after service completion or product delivery.
- If possible, require the user to fill out their name and who they are associated with. Anonymous testimonials don’t hold as much weight as ones associated with specific individuals or companies.
Ask via Business Email or Communication
- If your company is known for sending out newsletters with customer engagement, add a call-to-action for submitting testimonials.
- You could provide a short survey, a link to a form on your page, or just an email address where they can send a testimonial.
Consider Video or Audio Testimonials
- We know everyone is busy, and writing out testimonials can take time. So, consider setting up a brief call with a customer and recording their testimonial.
- You can use the recording either as an audio bite, a video, or transcribed into text content onto your site.
Featuring Testimonials
Now that you have your testimonials, what’s the best way to showcase them?
WordPress Plugins
Here are some of the top WordPress plugins that are being used to successfully highlight client testimonials.
- Strong Testimonials
- Testimonial Slider
- WP Testimonials
- Testimonial Rotator
- Testimonial
- Testimonials Widget
- Genesis Testimonial Slider
Featured Carousel
Consider overlaying testimonials on a featured hero image on your site or within a carousel on your main homepage with a stylized text treatment. It should be something that stands out but doesn’t take away from the main content of the page.
Integrated Throughout Your Site
You could utilize large block quote snippets from within a testimonial and highlight them throughout the site. For instance, if you have a quote praising a specific product, include that client testimonial on that product’s web page.
Create an Individual Page
You could dedicate a page just to testimonials on your site. It’s a great way to highlight more in depth or elaborate testimonials. If you’re lucky enough to get a detailed testimonial from a client, consider highlighting it and taking the opportunity to create a case study.
Social Media
Social media is a key way to promote testimonials. Include testimonials as posts right on your social media platforms that link back to specific references on your site that align with that testimonial. If possible, it can also increase the trustworthiness of a testimonial, if you’re able to associate a picture and social media account with the person who provided it.
There are a variety of ways to highlight client testimonials on your site, and it’s up to you to decide what fits your brand and your customers the best. No matter which avenue you decide to use, though, it’s important to remember how much of an impact including testimonials have on building trust and brand reputation.
Need a team to build a website that features your client testimonials? Contact us! You can check out our testimonials highlighted on our homepage.
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