When a potential lead or customer first visits your website, everything is going to be judged. From the business logo to the overall content and page load time. First impressions count, and if you’re not impressing them upon their first visit, chances are they’ll simply move on from your website for greener pastures.

When it comes to content, customer testimonials can be useful on almost any website page. These are certainly helpful to showcase your brand and give newcomers the best impression they need when understanding your brand and its reputation. Testimonials can also be reused in additional marketing strategies like social media campaigns.

Testimonials can take many forms, from visual user-generated content to Ratings & Reviews. There may already be testimonial content out there for your brand to source and display! Here are the best types of testimonials to add to your website, why they’re valuable, and where to start.

Why Testimonials Are Useful for Your Brand

With so many brands online, it’s easy to get lost in the noise. That’s why it’s important to get noticed and to engage those that discover your brand in order to help fulfill an action, whether it’s to subscribe to a newsletter or make a purchase.

Testimonials prove very effective for your brand, with 72% of consumers stating that positive testimonials and reviews increase their trust in a business. This is why you’ll likely see many businesses boosting any positivity that they can through client testimonials or reviews on product landing pages.

They add a personal touch.

Your site visitors’ impressions of your brand are influenced by a number of website factors. Testimonials tend to humanize a brand and give the user a personal insight into the brand from another customer’s point of view. These also tend to be unbiased, so the audience engaging with the review is going to likely believe what’s being said as true.

They make your brand more trustworthy. 

Trust is an important one for any customer and if your existing customers don’t trust you, then you’ll have a hard time convincing any potential ones that you’re a good fit. There’s a noticeable difference between having testimonials on your site as opposed to not having them at all. 

Even if you’ve spent thousands of dollars on a web design, that doesn’t immediately garner trust in the user or foster community-driven marketing. With that in mind, it’s good to present these testimonials within easy eyesight of the person coming onto the site for the first time. That way, they’re bound to influence your site’s bounce rate.

Testimonials offer a better user experience.

User experience is critical and it’s why many businesses invest heavily into UX design tools to help improve the journey that customers go on as they browse the site. Testimonials are a great way to enhance their experience as one great review could be influential in the user making a purchase.

Testimonials to Add to Your Website

What type of testimonials are there, and which are the most valuable and scalable? In this section, we’ll look at three of the most commonly used ones that are worth implementing onto your brand’s website.

1. Social User-Generated Content Displays

Many of us do well with imagery and when it’s accompanied with written text, as visuals can help the user get a clearer ‘image’ of what’s being described. UGC sourced from social platforms like Instagram can be especially valuable testimonial content, as they feature both authentic images and captions for a more holistic view of the customer’s experience.

UGC is crucial for most ecommerce sites because it helps the shopper determine whether or not the product is right for them. For example, visiting an apparel or cosmetics website and being able to view customers with different body types or skin tones contextualizes the product in question for site visitors who can identify with the customers featured.

Brands like Windsor consistently feature real customer UGC on-site. This content can also be repurposed to use in other marketing materials like email and social posts.

Pixlee TurnTo allows brands to automatically collect, curate, and permission Social UGC from Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and more. Approved content will then be automatically published in on-site galleries set up across your website, from product pages and homepage to individual campaign galleries.

2. Text-Based Customer Feedback

Traditional Ratings & Reviews that are easy to access and navigate are now expected on ecommerce websites. As you develop a robust reviews strategy, consider adding additional text-based testimonials like Checkout Comments™ or Community Q&A.

The invitation to add a Checkout Comment is sent to users immediately after purchase, asking the question “why did you buy this?” Often, these comments convey shoppers’ past success with your product and eagerness to buy it again or buy something else from the brand. This can build trust and affinity with site visitors, as they see people buying and loving your product in real time. Plus, they can help your team improve your product and overall brand strategy.

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With Pixlee TurnTo, Seattle Coffee Gear loads its product pages with social proof and testimonials in the form of reviews, Checkout Comments, and Community Q&A.

Community Q&A refers to a FAQ section on your brand’s product page, featuring commonly-asked questions that can be answered by both your brand’s team members and other customers. Q&A sections build off of the content from your customers in reviews, supporting purchase confidence in site visitors.

It’s worthwhile to get reviews and other feedback from customers of all varying influences, from your average joe to high-profile clients or influencers that may have used your product(s). These are a great option for placing on certain sections of the site, whether that’s in a pop-up or used in some of your official webpage or blog page content.

3. Video Testimonials and ‘Success Stories’. 

Testimonials to add to your website don’t just have to be image or text-based. Video testimonials can further contextualize your product and bring a personal touch to your website. This can be valuable for brands that may not cater to static images, and can take the forms of success stories, tutorial videos, or inspiration on new ways to use your product.

Featuring Social UGC on-site overlaps with video testimonials, especially with the recent growth of short-form social video services like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels. With a CRM platform like Pixlee TurnTo, you can automatically collect and showcase social video like Reels sourced from your community within your on-site displays.

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Revel Nail uses Pixlee TurnTo to showcase TikTok content alongside product images and UGC to provide the site visitor with an all-around testimonial-based shopping experience.

Consider utilizing influencer marketing to build your brand’s reputation in your industry and reach new audiences. You can feature influencer-led testimonial content like video, static images, and reviews on-site. Pixlee TurnTo allows brands to discover, build relationships with, and manage content from influencers in-platform for a streamlined approach to creator partnerships.

How to Source Customer Testimonials

When considering testimonial content to add to your website, make sure you also develop a strategy to source that content. Coining a branded hashtag and using a UGC platform like Pixlee TurnTo to practice social listening can help you identify who’s already talking about your product online.

A lot of the customers you already have could be talking about you online without realizing it. It’s always handy to have tools that can track brand mentions online via social media and other websites. If that’s the case, it may be as simple as messaging the individual and asking to use the information they’ve shared on the site (which can be done automatically in Pixlee TurnTo).

For others, you might want to follow up straight after purchase, perhaps via your email subscriber list as an example. Get creative with how you gather the information and be sure to get a variety of perspectives and diversity in your customer testimonials and reviews. Build relationships with customers and potential brand ambassadors to create a positive feedback loop of testimonial growth.

Additional Reputation-Building Tips

If testimonials are providing you with some success, you may want to look at other ways you can help improve the reputation and presence of your brand’s website. Here are a couple of suggestions to get you started.

Utilize Influencer Marketing

As we mentioned, it’s the age of influencers nowadays and influencer marketing is a great way to elevate your business and branding. The Digital Marketing Institute found that 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations in order to purchase something. That’s a considerable amount of swaying power that can be beneficial to your business.

Be sure to pick your influencers carefully and make sure they align with your brand, as well as have the right target audience. For example, finding niche TikTok influencers that are experts in your industry is often more valuable and cost-effective than partnering with celebrity influencers who promote products in many different industries.

Collaborate With Other Reputable Sites

In order to help build your brand online, collaboration is key. It’s worthwhile exploring the online world and finding like-minded sites that are reputable in their own right and collaborating on content. Simple guest posts can help backlink to your own site and boost its presence in traffic and ranking.

Engage with Your Customers and Followers

Engaging with your customers is crucial and that can be done both on social media and via your website. Go the extra mile and interact with your customers in any way possible whether that’s commenting on posts you’ve been tagged in orreplying to any direct messages you receive.

Testimonials are powerful pieces of content that should feature quite heavily on both your brand’s site and social media feeds. They create trust and encourage new customers that might be looking at your brand to go ahead and make a purchase.

As a marketing strategy, it’s an inexpensive form of advertising for the business too, so that’s always a win-win situation for most businesses who might be on a limited marketing budget!

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Natalie Redman is a freelance writer for many clients across multiple industries. Natalie has two years of copywriting experience. Natalie has a wide range of experience copywriting for web pages for businesses across many industries. She’s also an owner of two blog websites and a Youtube content creator.