Mistake #2
By now most visitors have been almost “desensitized” to testimonials. Visitors know that on-page testimonials can be made up or “inflated” so they tend to put more emphasis in Ratings and Reviews. Below are a few stats to help illustrate this point.
- 63% of users indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has ratings and reviews (source).
- People who read a review were 30% more likely to purchase a product and visitors who wrote a review were 80% more likely to convert (source).
- Shoppers who browsed “Top Rated Products”, which features products rated most highly by customers, had a 59% higher conversion rate than the site average and spent 16% more per order than other browsers of products (source).
What to do to correct mistake #2
Don’t use, (and definitely do not “make up”) testimonials. INSTEAD:
- Use actual customer reviews about the product or service on your landing page
- Embed Tweets about the product or service on your landing page
- Embed Facebook comments about the product or service on your landing page
- Most importantly use those little stars that everyone has come to expect (and google is now delivering on the SERP’s)
Remember I said we’d come back to this from Mistake #1? Well in Mistake #3 I am going to show you some actual examples on HOW to do this – so keep going.
image credits: senkailabs and dustin sparks 