How To Add Customer Testimonials To Your Website

Consumers today rely heavily (and primarily) on other customer reviews and testimonials to make their purchasing decision. Companies like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and CNET help thousands of people decide where to eat, stay, and which product to buy on a daily basis. Studies show that around 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business or making a purchase. Customer testimonials are considered the equivalent of asking for a personal recommendation.

How can you use customer testimonials to your advantage? There are many ways to advertise your customer testimonials, but the main idea is to display your best customer reviews on your website in a prominent location. If you don’t provide your website visitors with the review information they need to make a purchasing decision, there is a good chance you will lose that potential customer. This article will show you the best ways to display customer testimonials on your site.

First Gather Your Customer Reviews

Before you decide how to display your customer reviews, you will need to gather all of your best customer stories. These stories can come in many shapes and forms, so you will want to divide them up into similar groups, based on the content type. Group them by text length, type (case study, short testimonial, formal review), and media type - video or text. This way you have an idea of how many reviews of each type you possess and can easily display them on your site.

If you have a B2B company you should choose customer reviews from your most well-known, customers – assuming that they are positive reviews. A household name with a recognizable logo will grab your users’ attention. If you have a B2C business, choose your most glowing reviews from dedicated, happy customers. You have control over your site, and one negative or lukewarm review has the potential to turn a customer away.

Where Should Customer Testimonials Go On Your Site?

Once you’ve gathered all your customer case studies, testimonials, and reviews, you need to decide where they should live on your website. But don’t worry, you can choose multiple places depending on your user funnel. You will want to display your reviews differently, depending on what form each review takes. Continue reading to learn where to place user reviews.

The Homepage

Your homepage is one of, if not the most important page on your site. Because it is usually the first page your visitors will see, you want to put your best foot forward. Why not show how happy your customers are? Testimonials on your homepage shouldn’t be more than a few lines of text. If you have one or two great video testimonials, your homepage is a great place to showcase them as well. Videos are more aesthetically pleasing than a large block of text. Strikingly uses its homepage to highlight its wide range of customers, as well as the great things they have to say about the product.

Sidebar

Another way to show visitors your customer reviews is my putting them in a compact, but visually prominent sidebar. This sidebar can appear on specific pages, like feature descriptions or pricing pages, and it is a constant reminder to potential buyers that your current customers are happy.

Designated Page

If the testimonial is more than a few hundred words, you can create a “Case Studies” or “Success Stories” page, and display your long reviews in a useful, organized way. A designated customer review page can be structured in many different ways, but one great example is HubSpot’s case studies page. It has dozens of customer testimonials, but is extremely organized. The filters on the left side allow users to search for reviews based on company size, industry, organization, solution, challenge, location, and type. You don’t have to spend loads of time reading through case studies to find an example that is similar to your business.

How to Display Customer Reviews on My Site?

It is not only important to have customer reviews on your site, but to make sure that they will grab your users’ attention, and have the desired effect of convincing them to make a purchase. A number of website builders, such as Wix, offer special features just for showcasing customer testimonials. There a number of ways to do this, and below we will explain the best ways to showcase your customer stories.

Stats Are Key

The most important element of your customer testimonials is the data. Without a clear, impressive number or percentage, there is a greater chance your users will pass the testimonial without a second glance. For example, if you look at HubSpot’s case studies page, almost every single case study has a number in the title. These numbers grab user attention, and show in fewer words how effective the product or solution is.

Customers won’t always volunteer great stats if you don’t explicitly ask for them. It’s important to emphasize how crucial the numbers are for the review, and encourage them to add any numerical data they have.

Organize Your Testimonials

If you only have a few testimonials on your site, then you should simply display the best ones first. But if you have more than 10 reviews, you should organize them in a way that helps prospects decide which review is most similar to their needs, instead of reading through all of them to find relevant information.

There are a few good ways to organize your testimonials. The first is by industry or company type. Companies in similar industries will have similar business goals. You can also tag case studies by challenge or solution. There are number of ways to categorize testimonials, so you will need to understand what your customers are searching for, and it make it easy for them to find.

Include the Logos and Images

If you have a testimonial from a well-known brand, it is important to include their logo next to the testimonial. Just be sure to ask their permission first! If you have a review from someone well-known, be sure to include a photo. Images in general will help draw attention to your review, so it is recommended to include a relevant photo.

Video Testimonials: The Holy Grail of Reviews

The best, most viewed type of review is the video testimonial. The video doesn’t have to be more than 30 seconds, but if you can capture a smiling customer saying great things about your business, this will do wonders for your conversion rate. Video is becoming more and more important when it comes to content, and they have very view rates compared to text reviews.

Customer testimonials are an integral part of any website, and it’s important to plan how to present the reviews in order to attract attention from visitors. There are a number of website builders that have apps and tools for showcasing your best user reviews. To learn more, and check out top website builder reviews here.