Try this: go to any page on your website and count the marketing claims you make. How many times is your business described as easy, smart, effective, trusted, reliable? Are there half a dozen claims? Ten? More?
Now try this: look at the same page and count the number of times you supported these claims with evidence. How many data points, statistics, case studies and testimonials are there? Are there two of these? Five? Zero? There probably aren’t a lot.
The point is this:
And the easiest, most effective evidence you can add to a website is a testimonial.
You’re about to dive into the complete guide for website testimonials. We’re going to answer the top questions: Where to use them, how testimonials are written, how to get testimonials and why testimonials are effective. We’ll add customer testimonial examples throughout.
First things first…
Effective testimonials increase your conversion rates. What are the benefits? They build trust by acting as a third-party endorsement, triggering the conformity bias, also known as the bandwagon effect.
In this way, testimonials are an important form of social proof. Social proof is one of two types of evidence you can include on your website.
To build a really compelling website, use both. But start with testimonials.
Note: Endorsements vs. Customer testimonials – An endorsement is typically a well-known influencer giving their public support for a brand. But a testimonial is from a customer or client. They may be an unknown person to the reader, but they have personal experience with the product or service. Since they’re a paying customer, the testimonial is authentic, like a review.
There are two ways: ask for them and catch them as they flow past. The first approach is faster. The second approach is easier.
Start with your super fans. These are your happiest clients and customers. They may have already offered to be a reference so they won’t mind the request. They might really want to help you!
Here’s an example of an email that asks for a testimonial:
Hi there, Bob.
I’m writing to ask if you wouldn’t mind giving us a short testimonial for our website. We’re updating a few pages, and I’m hoping to add something from you. It would link back to your site, so it’s actually a good thing for your SEO.
Would this be ok with you? If this makes you even a little bit uncomfortable, no worries at all. But if you are ok with it, I can send you a very short blurb for you to review, or you can write a sentence or two and send it over. Whatever is easiest for you.
Thank you, Bob!
Warning! If you write and post without the review and approval of the person you are attributing it to, it’s fake. It’s also not legal. But if you write a draft and then allow the customer to make edits and give approval it’s real and legitimate.
Now let’s break it down. This email needs to be short, considerate and easy to respond to, whether they respond with a no or a yes.
As a bonus, this offer would include a link back to them, which is a good thing for them. We’ll assume they know how links work in Google …if they don’t, just share the video on that page!
An easy offer that actually helps them? How could they refuse!
Did they say yes? Great. Now say thank you. And I don’t mean a short email message. It’s time to go overboard on gratitude with a handwritten note, a LinkedIn recommendation or something else unexpected. Try a few of these 15 unexpected ways to say thank you.
Testimonials happen every day. Or at least the seeds of them do. A smart marketer knows how to spot these seeds. Here’s what they look like:
If you’re any good at your job, you see these from time to time (if you don’t, there are bigger problems you should fix before worrying about getting testimonials). The key is to spot them, then slow down and make the most of them.
Pro tip: Getting LinkedIn recommendations – If the happy message you spotted was more about you than the company you work for, ask the person to recommend you on LinkedIn. This really is the key to getting LinkedIn recommendations. Just ask someone nicely at the right moment.
So now we know how to spot them in the wild and how to ask for them. Either way, someone needs to write them. Who writes the testimonial depends on where it came from. Here are the writing tips.
The writing is key. How it’s written will determine it’s effectiveness. Here are three writing tips for great testimonials.
Long testimonials are unlikely to be read by visitors. Look at this example of a long, rambling testimonial…
“I just wanted to share a quick note and let you know that you guys do a really good job. I’m glad I decided to work with you. It’s really great how easy your websites are to update and manage. I never have any problem at all.
My new site is so much faster and easier to work with than my old site. It used to take me an hour or more to update a page and I would still sometimes screw things up.
Now it’s almost like having a designer right here with me. I just choose the page, make the change and click save. It’s so simple.
Thanks, guys!”
It might get scanned, but it’s unlikely to be read. So keep it short. We recommend 30-50 words total.
ProTip! If you do have longer testimonials, you can bold the most impactful words to guide visitors attention to the best parts.
Put the most impactful statement at the beginning. Edit it so even if people read just the first few words, they get the meaning quickly. Here’s that same example, made shorter and without the extra words at the beginning…
“You made it so simple. My new site is so much faster and easier to work with than my old site. I just choose the page, make the change and click save.
Thanks, guys!”
Ask yourself: which of the words in the testimonial are the most compelling? Which words align best with the hopes/fears of the visitor? Frontload the testimonial with those words.
Everything you say and write is marketing, and people know it. You can’t help it! But when your audience says it, it has the chance to be unexpectedly candid. Even blunt. It’s virtually impossible for a marketer to write copy as authentic as a customer. Check out this example:
“Wow. I just updated my site and it was SO SIMPLE. I am blown away. You guys truly kick ass. Thanks for being so awesome. High fives!”
That’s a tone so authentic, it’s disarming. Don’t try to write this way. Let your customers do it for you.
The more information in a testimonial, the more credible it is. Testimonials should include the person’s name, title, company and picture. The least credible testimonials include just the person’s initials.
Compare these examples:
The testimonial text is the same. But which of these is more credible, trustworthy and compelling? The biggest difference is the face. Faces will make your testimonials more personal, more real.
Pictures of faces are super powerful in marketing and a key tactic in neuromarketing web design. Basecamp once ran an A/B test that found including the face of a happy customer increase conversion rates by 102.5%.
(source: Behind the scenes: A/B testing part 3)
Bonus: Add the logo of the company. This is especially effective if the company is well known.
But my clients won’t let me use their names or company names. What can I do?
This is a common problem, and there is no easy way around it. If you cannot find any happy clients willing to let you put their name on your website, anonymize the testimonial by using initials and the industry.
It’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing. And there are other options. Testimonials are great, but there are other kinds of evidence we can add to our websites.
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“We know that more than 92% of all consumers and approximately 84% of all B to B buyers report that a ‘recommendation’ from someone they trust is the top influence on their purchase decision. (source) So, clearly, recommendations and testimonials are vital. However, many companies don’t allow their employees to publicly endorse products or services – and many consumers don’t make the time to recommend. There is another way. Research tells us that simply having someone ‘like’ or ‘share’ your content is regarded by many as an endorsement. And, if you bring customers in for a roundtable discussion – with moderators and experts – and share that content (with permission, of course), it is also often regarded as an endorsement.” – Paul M. Rand, @paulmrand, President/CEO of Critical Mass/Zocalo and author of ‘Highly Recommended’ (McGraw-Hill). |
Finally, here’s a super powerful tip from Jen Havice on one more thing to add to your testimonials:
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“The best way to give your testimonial a boost is by adding a compelling summary sub-headline above it. This could be as simple as pulling a powerful quote from a longer testimonial or creating your own copy that nicely sums up the value of the testimonial. By adding a sub-headline, you’ll not only draw more attention to your testimonial but entice your visitor to actually read what should be your most powerful form of social proof on your site.” – Jen Havice, @jenhavice, Conversion Copywriter, Make Mention Media. |
Jen shared this example from Calcworkshop. If your testimonials are long, this helps make them more scannable.
ProTip! Video is far more powerful than any of the formatting mentioned here. Video testimonials may be the single most powerful piece of content that you can add to your website. We’ll share our best tips for that tactic in a future post…
So now you’ve got ‘em. Where should you put these testimonials? How do you add them to your website? This tip might surprise you. But it makes sense when you think about it…
The reason is simple: visitors rarely go to testimonials pages. They can smell the marketing a mile away.
There is no expectation that they’ll get any information except a sales pitch. That’s why testimonials pages get less traffic than other pages. Putting your social proof here hides it from your visitors.
Here is what the Analytics typically looks like on a testimonials page. You can see that there are 30 pages on this website visited more often than this page. It’s never a popular page.
Putting them all together on one page also takes them out of context. They aren’t next to the messages they need to support. So here are three guidelines on where to put your sparkling new bits of social proof:
Here’s how we support those marketing claims. Does the testimonial mention a product or service? Put it on that product or service page. Does it mention your speedy delivery times? Put it on the shipping page.
Here’s an example of how a testimonial can be placed in context, next to the service it mentions.
Just look at your Users Flow report in Google Analytics to see the top path through your website, or look at the top pages in the All Pages report. Put your best foot forward by putting your best evidence on your top pages.
Every tip in this post so far is about increasing conversion rates. But this little bonus tip can increase your traffic as well. If the testimonial includes a target keyphrase, it can increase the relevance of that page for that phrase.
Here’s an example of an excerpt from a page optimized for raccoon removal service. We’ve marked in red every instance of those words, including various grammatical forms.
See how the testimonial can include the target phrase or related words? That can help the ranking of the page AND add social proof. That’s one of only a few tactics that can increase both traffic and conversion rates.
Now we know why they work, where to get them, how to write them and where to put them. Let’s wrap with a mini-guide with all the little things you can add to increase their power and credibility.
Know someone who needs these tips? Did you web designer leave a few of these out? Feel free to send this guide along to anyone who needs a more credible, higher-converting website.
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This is such a big help! Keep them coming
Four years later and I am STILL reading this article. It’s my go-to resource for testimonials for myself and others! Thank you for a well-written and very educational piece, sir!
Thank you so much for this informative article. This is such a big help! Keep them coming!
Of course, testimonials are effective and important for any activity. But the main thing is the correctness of their writing. For me, writing any kind of document is difficult. I can’t do it properly, therefore, I prefer to pay for the finished result. Usually, I read reviews on this source https://pickthewriter.com/ and choose the service that I need and can be sure of the quality and timeliness, and this is important for me.
Thanks for this great article, helped me a lot to get customer testimonials.
Visiting your site and reading through your material has given me rounded insight on a subject new to me. Thank you!
What is your recommendation regarding the number of testimonials that you should have on a home page? People often use sliders that rotate through a number of testimonials but I wonder if that is as effective as having just a couple side-by-side testimonials. Would people tend to tune out rotated testimonials?
i am looking for how to write for somebody a recommenting testimonial
Amazing Article … Worth Sharing …
I learned a lot from your concise and helpful descriptions and examples of testimonials that were not discussed on other sites. The links to other descriptive key phrases I will use to enhance my website. I also appreciate your creative presentations which added to the description.
Nice article to know about the testimonials with the examples. Thanks for the useful information for the people.
That Nielsen study from 2012 is a bit outdated – I’m assuming this post was written in 2017 while there already was a more recent study from 2015. According to that the numbers have dropped a little https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/2015/global-trust-in-advertising-2015.html to 83 and 66 %. Other than that, really valuable info Andy, so thank you a ton!
I put forward your idea of adding testimonials to your popular web pages to my SEO person rather than on a testimonials page, she came back with the reply {quote} With regards to the testimonials page I would somewhat disagree in adding this content to an existing page. I would recommend creating a new page for ‘testimonials’ this is because some of this content might not add instances of keywords and locations we are targeting.
Therefore you will end up with a really long page of content that is diluted because some of the content isn’t optimised. {quote} What are your thoughts on the above!.
Derek
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Great article, as always! Thank you, Andy.
Great post Andy. Thanks for sharing. I googled to find information on how to post testimonials to my website. I just didn’t feel good about adding a testimonial page. Glad I came across your article.
Awesome post Andy! Thank you, and bravo! I read a few other posts before this one on the same area, and all I found where generalised comments and pointers leading into more questions. You are openly offering solid advice, explaining the logic behind it and the guidance on how to practically get it done; a complete starter kit!
Perfect, well presented with easy to follow directions. A combination of personal LinkedIn recommendations and testimonials for our website is exactly what we need.
Thank you!
Excellent useful information. Just what we needed!
Excellent insight into adding “real” testimonials, and I just added some trying to follow these best practices. These had been added to my Google business page and another industry specific site.
I see some sites using one of the many plugins that display testimonials… thoughts? They seem to have a lot of features.
I love the point on that no website should have a separate testimonial page, and I both agree and disagree with it. Sprinkling testimonials across multiple service pages has helped SEO and conversion rates of those page. At the same time, our testimonials page gets more search traffic than the home page. Here’s how.
After reading an article you published on testimonials in the past, I made sure I put them on all relevant pages of my client ThriveMD Vail. Apologies for shameless promo, but I encourage anyone reading this to look the site up so you know what exactly I’m talking about.
But, instead of deleting the testimonial page, I looked into its SEO stats. It was a page for stem cell reviews related to all different orthopedic conditions that this clinic treats with the patients’ own adult stem cell. I found the keywords it was ranking for, split the page into two topics, and optimized. Now we have a page for joint pain stem cell reviews, and a page for back pain stem cell reviews. The joint one is the highest ranking page on the site, bringing in twice as much traffic as the home page.
The downside is that people looking for reviews, in any industry, will be those that are shopping around. Our bounce rates are therefore high. But with such high numbers of visitors, we still get a ton of goal completions by visitors who started on the testimonials page.
One other great thing about the page is that by adding new testimonials to it on a regular basis, we keep its content fresh and Google rewards us for it.
What do you good people think of this? Would you apply it on your own site?
Excellent article!
Great article and will be focussing on testimonials next. I am confident after reading your info that they will play a big part in improving our conversions. many thanks
Just found your website. LOVING IT!
Thank you
Great post! Really helpful as my SEO expert just assigned me the task of gathering testimonials for my site.
Gosh Andy. This is seriously good stuff here. I’ve shared it around. Now I need to go back and check how I’ve used the ones I already have.
Andy, I have to say I learn more from your content marketing posts than almost everywhere else. You’re far more knowledgable than most web designers we know and it shows in your work. You’ve been a source of inspiration to me.
Hey Andy! Terrific article and tips! I agree, asking is critical. This is part of our weekly outreach. We have been so focused on asking for headshots when asking for testimonials, love the idea of adding the client LOGO’s as well! And what a great branding opportunity for the customer. Thank you for including Cushing in this article!
Thank you, Jon, for the comment, the testimonial and the ongoing partnership. It’s been great collaborating with you guys. We are all very grateful to be working with Cushing!