How can you add testimonials to your website? We all know the phrase: “Don’t take my words for it, listen to our customers!” I‘m Arthur, I’ve worked in marketing since 2001, and in a country of 40 million people, I drove our B2B site to be the clear leader in terms of reviews and testimonials in our website industry. I’m going to cover all the steps you need to take in order to boost your business with good reviews. Buckled up? Let’s get started!
Why Are Testimonials Worth Their Weight in Gold?
Alright, folks, let’s dive into today’s topic: testimonials. In layman’s terms, a testimonial is a commendation from one of your customers, expressing their experience and feelings about your product or service. It’s like a customer’s love letter confessing how your product or service made a difference in their life. It gives credibility to your business, painting it as reliable and worthy of investment.
Now, here comes the exciting part. Picture a testimonial as your business wingman—you know, just like in those Hollywood movies where the shy guy mingles at a swanky party with a suave friend who talks him up. That’s what a testimonial does for your business. It talks you up, promotes your value, and bridges the gap between your business and potential customers.
As per a study by BrightLocal, 91% of 18-34-year–old consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. That’s the equivalent of entire cities putting their faith in your business based on your customer reviews.
But here’s the kicker, not all testimonials are created equal! Some are as genuine as a three-dollar bill, while others are frank and fair.
According to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, a satisfied customer will tell 9 friends about their positive experience. That’s right, you’re not only getting a compliment from one happy customer, but potentially winning over 9 more! So, strap on those boots and start walking the path towards transforming your website into a testimonial showcase.
Before we delve deeper into the details of how you can creatively display these testimonials, let’s take a moment to appreciate their power. Testimonials are golden nuggets of trust, authentic reviews that can take your business from zero to hero. They’re the customer’s voice that sings your praises, louder than any advertisement or marketing campaign ever could. So, read on to see how together, we’re going to make your business shine brighter than a star in the night sky.
Deciphering the Code of Different Types of Testimonials
Let’s unravel the mystery of different types of testimonials. Testimonials are not just feedback—they’re the lifeblood of your business.
Praise Testimonials
At the most basic level, you have the old-school “Praise” testimonial. Picture this: It’s like a secret admirer writing you a letter, singing your praises and talking about how you’re the bee’s knees. However, these testimonials, while sweet, lack substance and context. They’re as vague as a weather forecast telling us it’s going to be “nice” outside.
Peer Testimonials
Next, we have “Peer” testimonials, coming straight from your target audience’s mouth. This is where the magic starts to happen. They’re as relatable as your favorite sitcom, and as believable as a friend’s recommendation. They reflect the real experiences of real customers, and they show that you understand your audience, just as a good conductor knows their orchestra.
Celebrity Testimonials
On the other side of the spectrum, there are “Celebrity” testimonials. Just like having a major league hitter endorse your baseball bat, these testimonials are great for adding star-power to your brand. But remember, you need the right fit. A chess endorsement from a basketball star might be as confusing as a goat on a skateboard.
Case Study Testimonials
Finally, we have “Case Study” testimonials. These are the heavy hitters, the main event. They’re not just telling the world you’re great, they’re showing it, with cold, hard facts. And with a tool like website builder _Now by cyber_Folks, adding testimonials to your website becomes as easy as pie. No more struggling with complicated WordPress menus. Just click, add, and watch your business credibility soar.
Video Testimonials
This is a nice one. Once you have a satisfied customer, you can always ask them why they chose your brand and therefore get a very credible video, with high trust-building potential.
This is an example of video testimonial. Please note the following elements that make it effective:
- what my business is,
- what my problem is,
- how the recommended solution addresses the problem,
- what the benefits are.
So, there you have it. Four different types of testimonials, each with their own flavor and benefits. It’s a smorgasbord of customer praise waiting to boost your business to the heavens. The right testimonial, showcased in the right way, can be the rocket fuel your website needs to reach the stars.
How Do You Get Testimonials? That’s the Question!
Let’s be honest, gathering testimonials is not a walk in a park. Hardly anyone will want to spend extra time to express their opinion. So how do companies go about it? How do they get the reviews that are then put on their websites?
Temptations of Astroturfing
What’s astroturfing, you ask?
Opinion trading is alive and well in the digital world—on both sides of the fence. Companies pay for glowing reviews to boost their reputation, while rivals often fund “smear campaigns” to sling some digital mud. These shady practices even have a name.
Astroturfing is like painting dead grass green—faking a grassroots movement to create the illusion of widespread support or outrage. Think of it as the corporate version of a flash mob, except instead of real people showing up, you’ve got bots and trolls leaving comments en masse. And yes, there’s an entire industry built around this, with so-called troll farms churning out paid opinions faster than you can say “five stars or bust.”
It was a few years back, but I’ll share this experience with you. I was in Wroclaw, Poland, attending a “Marketing Progress” conference. Jacek Kotarbiński, Ph.D., a famous European marketer, gave a speech about astroturfing. One nugget stuck with me: You could buy an online opinion—whether a rave review or a scathing critique—for as little as 2 cents!
I know, shocking, right? And while that was a few years ago, rumor has it that prices have since gone up.
How Much Does an Online Review Cost These Days?
Some businesses openly advertise that they can sell you a package of negative reviews to drag down the competition. Look at this example screenshot:
How are you feeling now? Terrified enough?
How Do You Add Testimonials? Surely NOT Like This!
It’s a bit like going to the store and asking, “Can I get a kilo of reviews, please? Maybe a meter or two of complaints?” We’re getting dangerously close to a world where reviews are just another commodity, sold by the batch. You might as well start imagining reviews as a new currency—except, like counterfeit bills, they’re worth nothing.
If you ask me, this is 100% the worst way you can do it for your business. I mean, yeah, you can buy such opinions. But since they have absolutely no basis in reality, the moment of truth will come soon. And it will be painful!
Maybe Pay For Them?
Well, valuable things rarely come for free, right? So how about paying for testimonials from regular, actual users? Well, I think this is a “+1” to your credibility when compared to the previous method. Here, however, we need to point at three ways of paying:
- direct payment (where the testimonial is “paid” or “bought” directly)—here it is of course hard to trust, as you might think the review is not honest;
- other direct benefits, usually discounts, free samples, free periods in case of recurring services;
- contests, like “Write a review and the best review wins.”
All of them might work, but not only are they questionable from a moral point of view but also legally limited in some countries. In some regions for example, when an influencer prepares a YouTube video with reviews of products, he or she must state exactly what the relationship is between the creator and the companies. Is it paid or sponsored? Was the product bought for a regular price? And so on. But legal obligations are not as important here as transparency—through which we can gain trust.
The Best Possible Way
The best possible way is, my fellow website owner, asking a real customer for a testimonial–at the right moment. Period.
Yes, it’s that easy and that difficult at the same time. Usually, when you deliver your product or your service, all you get is something like “OK,” “everything fine,” “nice”—and that’s it. But surely this is not enough!
Why does it happen, you ask? And this is a heck of a question! Fortunately, the answer is simple: because they don’t want to spend their time and energy on anything more. But worry not my friend, because here I am going to show you how to deal with such situations.
You see, there are actually TWO important aspects to understand:
- Why people DO something.
- Why they DON’T.
The Magic Trick that Changes Everything
Now focus please, as this part is really going into magic. But this magic drove me to a company with the highest number of testimonials in a country of 40 million people. Starting from scratch. So, let’s get going!
Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize laureate in psychology, teaches us about fast and slow thinking. In the simplest possible form, there are two minds in us. One of them is responsible for “fast” thinking. Kahneman calls this “System One.” It drives our behavior before we fully realize what is happening. It works mainly in simple and routine situations. So, when you spread butter on a slice of bread, you do not usually THINK about the angle of the knife, right? It’s like you’re just doing it.
The other system is responsible for harder tasks requiring more “processing power,” calculations, estimations, abstract thinking, processing complicated grammar, understanding things. It is called “system two” and you’re using it right now to understand this article, or when you’re taking a math exam.
Now, a very interesting fact: System One is processing things very fast, without even taking grammar or tense issues into consideration. This is when you hear “Do not think of a big yellow balloon!” and you probably see a big yellow balloon, as processing “Do not”—a contradicting part—requires tons of processing power and therefore takes longer.
When something happens, it is much, much harder to contradict it. It usually needs more effort to contradict than to accept. When you walk, it’s easier to keep walking than to change pace or direction. When something happens, it’s easier to accept that it happened. Some believe that this is very deep, touching even the essence of religion: a deep belief in something brings this thing into life, because all our behavior will be driven as though it has already happened. Check “The Power of Your Subconscious Mind” by Joseph Murphy if you want to dig deeper.
I have seen this observation play out everywhere. It was so much easier to accept something when it has happened! My wife was a photographer. When she charged $500 for a session, it was hard to find a customer. But once she charged just $250 , but with a very limited number of pictures, and every extra picture was $10 more, people ended up with a $700–800 bill and were happy to pay. This was because they were presented with the ready-to-print pictures. It was so hard to ignore them! Once something is ready, once it’s done, it’s much more difficult to contradict.
Now, let’s get back to testimonials. I started with ZERO testimonials. But I wanted to get lots of them and I wanted the testimonials of famous people—keynote speakers from famous digital marketing conferences. I wanted their faces to be seen on our website. Fortunately, with lots of them, I had an existing relationship. I did something for each of them. Something small, yes, but something they could not ignore.
Then I prepared the testimonials page. It was a pretty clean design with boxes with their photos (taken from the internet) and quotations. Now, how about the quotations? These were undeniable facts. There were facts people simply could not deny, like “I was surprised that a hosting provider could also help me with Google Looker Studio integration,” because I really did help this guy to integrate his data with Looker Studio (back then called Google Data Studio, by the way).
After I got four boxes with photos and these “small acts of truth,” I took a screenshot and sent it over to those people, saying the truth: that it was an unpublished page with testimonials and I thought they could look really great there. This was my proposition, and I asked them to agree to become the heroes of our testimonial page.
The reaction was immediate (24 hours can be considered immediate, right?). I was not only given consent, but also better text and full resolution photos! It worked like crazy. As it started and the page got bigger and bigger, we stopped asking for testimonials, because clients started to ask us what they should do to get on our testimonials page!
How Do You Add Testimonials to Your Website on a Large Scale?
Let me be honest with you, there is only one way: satisfy your clients on a large scale first. This is your necessary condition. But is it enough? Well… unfortunately, no!
PROTIP
To have lots of satisfied customers is one thing. But it’s another thing to convince them to share their opinions. The absolute key is choosing the right moment to ask for an opinion. The BEST option is to ask people right in the moment when their emotions are highest.
When you want to get testimonials and you map your customer journey, you will no doubt get some moments of lower and higher commitment levels. I believe the best option is to pinpoint the highest commitment level. Let me show you some examples:
- receiving an unexpected freebie
- contacting your support
- resolving a claim
- performing some actions in your application
- clicking a high score on an NPS survey
So, we are meeting two important conditions: the right time and the right satisfaction level. Is this enough? Well… it might be. However, in most cases, people need one final push. One obstacle to getting people to share an opinion is when they don’t know what to write!
There’s a simple solution: make it easier for them by suggesting what to write. You don’t need to give them exact words—sometimes it’s enough to point them in the right direction. Such a suggestion might be given by, e.g., presenting other reviews you’ve gathered previously.
Is More Better?
Well… to some extent, yes. We are all social. We are all driven by the mechanism of social proof. So, more is better, yes. But there are three other aspects that are even more crucial: structure, trustworthiness, and relevance. Let’s give these a closer look!
Structure
A short testimonial should usually have it’s own structure, and all the components are aimed either to make it easier to read or to build trust. A testimonial might consist of:
- the main statement
- one short sentence, title or just 3 or 4 words, emphasized in bold or by repeating them in the title
- 1 or 2 sentences about the author of the review
- the name of the author
- a photo of the author
- a link to author’s social media or website
- recommendation details: WHO do you recommend a product to
- what problem your product or service solved
- what changed after using your brand
Trust
The more precise a description, the easier it is to trust. You build trust with details. Take a look at these 2 testimonials:
“A very silent washing machine.”
“I’m a mom of two toddlers, so I usually take care of laundry late at night. This machine is exceptionally quiet. I would definitely recommend it to people struggling with putting their kids to sleep. – Jessica Brown, 29, Chicago, IL”
As you can see, the more details we have, the more trustworthy the testimonial appears.
Relevance
And the final issue: relevance. If you promote the eco-friendliness of your washing machines, then testimonials referring to noise level would be… well… harmless of course, but they would not support your USP! Your USP (unique selling proposition) is, in simple terms, the main benefit you offer that makes you stand out against the competition.
So, once you communicate your USP clearly, usually in the hero section of the website, you want to catch testimonials purely referring to the statements from the top lines of the page. This way, your site would be cohesive rather than offering a random bunch of opinions.
The above examples would be great if you were offering “family washing machines” or “silent washing machines”. But if you offer eco-friendly washing machines, you’d be better off with testimonials about water and power consumption.
Where Do You Put Testimonials?
Adding testimonials to your website isn’t just about tossing them into any old place like an afterthought. You want them front and center, where they’ll make an impact—like hanging a masterpiece right above the fireplace.
Here are the best spots:
- Homepage: Let your visitors see the reviews as soon as they land. This is your red carpet moment, roll it out!
- Product Pages: Put them near the product or service you’re selling. Like a little “psst, this stuff works, trust me” whisper in the buyer’s ear.
- Checkout Page: When they’re this close to buying, seeing one last glowing testimonial can be the nudge they need. Think of it like a cheerleader at the finish line yelling, “You got this!”
Testimonials Done Right—The Crown Jewel of Your Website
Testimonials aren’t just optional extras on your website; they’re golden assets that can turn casual browsers into committed customers. I hope you realize now how important it is to know how to add testimonials to your website!
When implemented thoughtfully, they bring authenticity, highlight your business strengths, and build trust faster than any other marketing tactic. And the right kind of testimonial—whether it’s a peer’s voice, a compelling video, or a powerful case study—can act as social proof, solidifying your brand’s credibility and appeal.
By adding testimonials at high-impact points—like your homepage, product pages, and even checkout—you maximize their effectiveness, turning your website into a convincing, trust-filled experience. Each testimonial is a mini-story of success, a direct endorsement from satisfied customers who’ve walked the path before and can guide new visitors to your services.
Think of your website as your storefront. Testimonials are like happy customers gathered at the entrance, sharing positive stories that make others want to join. With a website builder like _Now by cyber_Folks, seamlessly adding testimonials to your site becomes a breeze. You don’t need to wrestle with tech barriers; instead, you get to focus on curating those powerful stories, positioning them perfectly, and letting them do the talking for you.
So, go ahead—add testimonials that resonate, shine, and amplify your business value. Because in the vast digital marketplace, nothing speaks louder than a genuine recommendation from a happy customer. Let your testimonials shine like diamonds in your marketing crown!
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