The One Thing Your Website Needs To Be Credible
One of the main tasks your website has is to get your website visitors to trust you. People buy from brands and businesses that they know, like, and trust so establishing that trust is key if you want people to buy from you.
The best way to get that trust is through testimonials, reviews, and social proof. In this post, I’ll share tips for getting testimonials from your clients so you can start adding them to your website and building trust.
Why Testimonials Are Key To Building Trust
According to statistics, people trust online reviews and recommendations as much as they trust personal recommendations. Client testimonials are nothing more than reviews from your past clients. If you go above and beyond for your clients, they’ll be more than happy to give you a glowing testimonial and refer more people to you.
Essentially, testimonials provide social proof that others have worked with you before and have been happy with your services.
Client testimonials also backup your claims about how good your services truly are. And because of that, potential clients are more likely to trust in your expertise and hire you.
How To Get Testimonials?
Getting testimonials is not hard. The simplest thing you can do right now is to email past clients and ask them for a testimonial.
Another way to get testimonials is to make it a part of your offboarding process. For example, you could include a request for a testimonial in your client good bye packet.
You can also frame it as a feedback questionnaire. That way, your clients won’t be intimidated by the idea of having to write a testimonial from scratch and deal with a case of writer’s block.
A few questions you can include in your feedback questionnaire:
Details of their situation before working with you (what were they dealing with? Where were they stuck?)
What made them reach out to you? What was the breaking point?
How has working with you improved their situation? What are 2-5 benefits they experienced from working with you?
What would they say to someone who is on the fence about working with you?
When to Ask For A Testimonial?
So now that we’ve covered how to get testimonials, you might be wondering when to ask your clients for one.
The best time is to ask them when you’ve wrapped up their project or finished working with them. This is the most natural time to include the ask as they will still be excited with their results.
But, if your business relies on strategy and it takes time to see the results, as it’s often the case with coaching, it’s a good idea to wait 4-6 weeks before reaching out. This allows them to see the benefits of working with you and it also gives you a testimonial with practical results that you can include to make your testimonial more effective.
How to Put Together An Effective Testimonial?
So I’ve already hinted at the fact that ideally, you want to include results in your testimonials. Beyond that, remember that you don’t have to use their answers word for word, especially if they’re long.
You can edit for brevity but don’t go changing the words or substituting them for what you think sounds better. That’s a no-no and it comes off as disingenuous.
Instead, focus on pulling key figures, results, numbers, and facts. Avoid vague statements such as “She was awesome to work with!” or “She really helped me!”.
Look for statements such as:
“She helped me solve x problem and I was able to immediately gain this benefit from it.”
Do you see how the latter is more specific and speaks directly to how you actually help your clients? Remember, potential clients don’t want to see statements that can be applied to almost anyone. They want to know they’ll get specific results from working with you so use testimonials to backup that claim.
Once you’re done editing the testimonials, you can email your clients and ask them if it’s okay to publish the edited version on your website and other marketing materials.
Where to Put Your Testimonials?
The last thing to talk about when it comes to testimonials is where to put them. Now, you might be tempted to create a dedicated testimonial page on your website. I’m here to tell you: Don’t.
In my experience, nobody looks specifically for a testimonial page. It's not a conscious thing. Besides, a testimonial page buries your testimonials instead of letting them work for you and you’ve got more important website pages to include in your main navigation.
A few places where you can include testimonials include:
Homepage
Services page
Sales page
Portfolio page if you have one (ie. if you’re a copywriter, illustrator, designer, photographer etc.)
In other words, include them throughout your website. Remember that you don’t have to include all the testimonials you’ve ever gotten on a single page. Instead, add a testimonial or two on each page mentioned above.
How To Format The Testimonials On Your Site
I mentioned above that you want to edit the testimonials for brevity. Beyond that, you’ll want to include the following:
Headshot of the person giving you a testimonial — it lends more credibility and shows there’s an actual person behind the testimonial
Their name
Their company name, job title or occupation
Their website if they have one and if it’s necessary to showcase the results
Final Thoughts
Testimonials are key when it comes to building trust on your website and positioning you as the expert. I hope these tips were helpful and you’ll start to implement them to get more testimonials for your business.
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