Website testimonials are a fantastic way to establish credibility (not to mention a very modest way of blowing your own trumpet!)
Here are our tips for getting, editing and using client testimonials on your website.
- Make it part of your process. Whether you’ve sat down and drawn a flow chart to map out your business processes or they only exist in your head, every task you perform or job you do for a client is likely to have a number of steps that you go through. Think about adding to the end of that list ‘ask for feedback’ – if they’ve had a good experience most people won’t mind taking a couple of minutes to let you know you’ve done a good job.
- Make them relevant. Make your testimonials relevant to the people that are likely to be looking at your website. If most of your clients are solicitors, then get testimonials from other solicitors that you have worked with.
- Make them real. A double meaning to this one – firstly, don’t fake your testimonials – you may think you can fool your potential clients, but you probably can’t! Secondly, the best testimonials sound like a real person has written them so don’t edit them too much. Make sure you attribute the quote with the person’s full name and, if appropriate, a link to their website. Going one step further, if you can get a photo of that person include that – it all helps to give a sense of authenticity.
- Get specific. The more specific the testimonial, the better the response is likely to be, particularly if the reader can relate to it. Ask your client to get specific with exactly what improvements they saw, ask them to quote figures. Describing obstacles they encountered and how you overcame them will add sincerity and show that you can be flexible.
- Show off! Add a testimonials page to your website and let people see exactly what is being said about you. But don’t stop there, add them into your content in relevant places in the text. For example if you have a page where you talk about a specific service you offer, add a testimonial from one of the people that has used that service. You can also post them on your social media pages and thank the client that wrote it.
