Why are testimonials important to have on your website?
A quote from famed psychologist, Dr. Robert Cialdini, “People see an action as more appropriate when others are doing it.”
When someone is going through their decision making process, they want to feel that there is as little risk as possible when moving forward with their decision. Feeling like other people have already done what they want to do will give them a mentality that it’s a “safe decision.”
So how can you incorporate testimonials into your website? Here are 5 ways you can implement today:
- Customer Stories Page
- Testimonials Page
- Sidebars With Quotes
- On Your Home Page
- Within Landing Pages As Social Proof
Write Customer Stories For Your Blog
Incorporating testimonials into customer stories is a great way to not only get the social proof and credibility but also showcase your company’s success. As with this Benseron reviews page, they are on a mission to collect customer stories that show off how well their product works and how happy their customers are.
This kills two birds with one stone. Case studies (or whatever you want to call them), are a great piece of content to use to not only attract new prospects, but to help nurture warm prospects through their decision making process.
And not to mention, if you’re a B2B company and your customers are featured, they will appreciate that extra promotion!
Plain Ole Testimonials Page
It’s always a good idea, and a standard one, to have a testimonials page on your website. This page is basically a list of all different testimonials that you have gathered over time.
One of the reasons this is my least favorite way to incorporate testimonials into your website is because how many people are really interested in clicking to your testimonial page? I don’t find that likely, and it doesn’t help build your credibility alongside the other valuable information you have on your site, related to your services, that people are actually reading.
Insert Testimonials Into Your Sidebar
A good way to spin off of the plain ole testimonials page is to create a list of your testimonials that are archived on one page, but then are also distributed as quotes throughout your website. If your site is built with WordPress, then you can do this using custom post types (or a regular category) and a widget area in your sidebar (the how-to instructions for this would be for another article altogether).
Now with one effort, you have your testimonials listed on one page for those that want to drive traffic, send to prospects, or for the occasional website visitor that’s interested. But you also have them added to supplement your blog posts and service pages to help reinforce your website visitors belief in your company.
Use A Testimonial On Your Home Page
When someone visits your website’s home page, they are being introduced to your company and looking for more information about who you are and what you do. The Merchant Business Academy home page prominently highlights their value proposition with a Call To Action, a testimonial to immediately start earning credibility with the reader, then the services they offer targeting specific niches.
Quote Your Customers On Your Landing Pages
When building a landing page that is highly optimized for converting a reader into a customer, it is key to have a customer testimonial here to help influence the visitor to complete the desired action.
A great point by Joanne Wiebe in this Unbounce article is that there is no such thing as “low social proof”, without having testimonials on your page, then you have negative social proof. One way or another your testimonials will tell a story to your readers, a lot of testimonials will tell a positive story, and a lack of testimonials will tell a negative one.
According to Joanne, people need to believe that they are one member of a larger herd.
Seeing that other people have already done (and are happy with) what they are contemplating will lower their feeling of risk. The lower you can bring that reader’s feeling of risk, the more likely they are to move through your sales funnel.
How Do You Incorporate Testimonials Into Your Website?
Tell us in the comments how you are incorporating testimonials into your website. Are you using any of these techniques? What else would you add to this list?