Spreading the word that your site or product is really good could prove to be a very beneficial thing to do. The only thing is, how do you do it?
You could, of course, pay for marketing campaigns which claim that your product or site is awesome and so on. But, the average Joe will be more compelled that your product truly is good when he/she sees that other people have given good testimonials on that specific product or site.
Customer testimonials are the best thing you can have on your site not only because they increase your chances of people actually buying your products, but they are also a very nice way of guaranteeing that more and more visitors will come to your site to view what you have to offer.
They can come in many different forms; the most common customer testimonials can be found in online stores. These testimonials are usually connected to a specific item that is being sold or to a seller who is offering the item. A person usually goes and looks if the testimonials are positive for a seller in order to be sure that the seller won’t try to pull something funny like not sending your order or sending you damaged goods.
If your site is not an online store but rather something else like a blog, news site, travel agency, or even a single page where there is a single product or service being offered, then you too can benefit a lot by using customer testimonials!
Where to find or create customer testimonials
Well, the first thing you have to do is to find good testimonials that you are going to be using on your site. There are a number of ways how to find them:
1. Social media
Just go through your social media feed and try to find people who have posted anything claiming that your site is good or that they are happy with your product or service. You can then just take a picture of that “review” (print screen) and simply post it as a picture next to your product or at the bottom of your site (wherever you think it would make the most sense).
2. Comment sections
Inspect any comment section that you can find on various sites where your product is shown or your site is linked. YouTube comment sections and Facebook comment sections are a great location for testimonials.
3. Review sites or apps
There is a fair number of sites where people can leave a review of your product, site, and so on. For example, if your site is about food or if you own a restaurant then you can just go to yelp and find testimonials there. On the other hand, a Growthoid client review can be found on their site.
4. Simply ask the people
Why not just ask our fans, visitors, or followers on social media or other places to give you their testimonials? It is simple as that, just ask them and you will surely get a fine number of testimonials that way. A simple post on Twitter or Facebook asking for this will be more than enough. Alternately, you could send people emails asking them to give you a testimonial (people who are subscribed to your newsletter for example).
5. Private emails
Maybe there have been people who have sent you an email thanking you for your service or saying how happy they are with your product. Just use that as a testimonial on your site. But always ask them if they would like their email to be posted on your site.
6. Plugins
And last, but not least are plugins. You can just simply find a plugin that gives your visitors the opportunity to leave a comment (testimonial). These plugins are simple to set up and use as you will see in the following paragraphs.
A list of awesome plugins to choose from
Now, I will give you a list of the best plugins that you can download and install on your WordPress site in order to enable users to leave testimonials:
1. Testimonials Showcase
This is a simple yet effective plugin for gathering and showcasing testimonials on your site. With it, you could also create a form that the users can fill out, and you can then showcase that information on your page.
2. Boast Display
The same thing as the last plugin, only this one is slightly more professional and it also gives you the ability to post video testimonials for your customers or visitors.
3. Testimonial Slider
This plugin revolves more around displaying testimonials rather than the process of acquiring them. It has a lot of neat features that allow you to create and design the perfect layout and feel of the testimonial display section. And you have a number of templates to choose from if you are feeling lazy to design your own. Also, you don’t need to know how to use shortcodes or anything of that sort.
4. Stars Testimonials
If stars are more your thing then this is the plugin for you. It is like the rest of them but this one makes better use of how it displays stars and such things.
Quick tips
- Use testimonials from people who have a profile picture – It is more convincing to other customers when they see the people who have given a good testimonial on your product. Just make sure that their picture is not something childish or offensive.
- Add links to the testimonials – If you are able, add the link to where you have gained that specific testimonial. If the person wrote it on Facebook then link to that. This will increase the trust that customers have in your brand, site, product, or service because they can connect the testimonial to a real person.
- Find out what is your demographic – If you are selling to women then make sure that the majority of testimonials are from women. The same can be applied for almost anything. If you are selling sports car accessories then make sure that there are more male testimonials displayed. Basically, look at which demographic of people are your biggest customers or visitors and then post testimonials that fit that demographic.
- Find the ones that feel the most genuine – If someone just says that they like what you offer, and that’s it, then that is not a good testimonial to use. You should find the ones that say why they liked it and what are the qualities in that product or service. And, please, don’t fake your testimonials because people can see through them and some are so obvious that people just don’t come back to visit your site anymore, so keep that in mind.
Conclusion
So there it is! I hope you found this helpful, and again, I want to remind you not to fake the testimonials, we are not barbarians after all!
