Source: depositphotos.com
Digital marketers had to overcome some significant challenges over the years. Gaining their audiences’ trust certainly remains one of the more prominent challenges.
Reviews and testimonials present themselves as key tools in overcoming the credibility issue. Today, they are considered a powerful trust and competence signal, and most ecommerce websites have them in one form or another.
Let’s take a look at the best placement and composition solutions that will make your website more trustworthy (and, ideally, easier on the eyes, too). Granted, there are age groups that still don’t find reviews to be completely honest, as you can see from the graph below – but a significant portion of adults trust them as much as personal recommendations.
Source: searchenginejournal.com
Make Them Stand out
Your first option is to design a separate section on your pages (most often your homepage or product features page) that will showcase what your satisfied customers have to say about you.
Carousels are the usual design choice, but you can choose any other solution that goes well with the page. Collages and videos work just as well.
You can find a good example on the ProofHub homepage. The testimonials are colorful, yet they still blend in with the rest of the green theme, and they also come with a useful stat.
Make sure that the customers whose words you feature are the ones that are most likely to appeal to your target audience. Maybe they are most like them, maybe they aspire to be like them, or perhaps they have overcome similar issues.
Create a Separate Page
The other option is to create an entirely separate page that will showcase your testimonials. This offers you plenty more room to shine, that’s true. The downside, however, is that it also minimizes the chance of a customer seeing your testimonials as soon as they land on your website.
The best solution here would be to feature some social proof on your homepage and create a separate testimonials page. You can then use the dedicated page as a reference when marketing your product to potential buyers.
ZenDesk does this with a unique page, where they are able to truly shine a light on some of their partnerships and customers. This kind of page can also help you rank better if you use it for SEO purposes and work on driving some traffic in its direction. Take a look at how using reviews has clearly helped boost organic page views for 30,000 businesses:
Source: bigcommerce.com
Make Sure Your Buyers Are Genuine
One of the reasons people don’t trust reviews is that they can be manufactured. After all, who’s to say you didn’t hire someone to leave all those positive reviews on your own pages?
A way to circumvent the issue is to verify each review has been left by a genuine buyer and to highlight this fact in the review section.
Here’s an example from Mannequin Mall, which has a Verified Buyer badge next to the name of the user reviewing the product. What also helps is the fact that not all the reviews are glowing, and there are people who have voiced questions about assembly and returns.
This can work especially well for local businesses that are trying to attract real-life visitors to their premises. When it comes to restaurants, shops, salons, gyms, and the like, people like to check out the reviews before deciding to pop in.
Source: marketinginsidergroup.com
Show Some Appreciation
If you can reply to every user who’s left a review, you’ll be scoring major brownie points. That’s especially if they have also asked a question, offered an extra tip for using your products, or verbalized any concerns.
Of course, this may not be possible on huge websites where the reviews literally pour in flocks. However, you should still make it a point to respond to the less-than-four-star reviews, as they have most likely come from an unsatisfied customer. This is also a great way to identify any negative reviews that aren’t coming from genuine customers.
Here’s an example from Herbal Dynamics Beauty and their responses to customer reviews on their firming eye mask page. Even a simple “thank you” shows you’ve taken the time to show some appreciation for your customers. And that can go a long way in showing you are more than just a faceless brand.
Source: herbaldynamicsbeauty.com
Use a Video Testimonial
Source: depositphotos.com
Finally, there’s always the option of using a video testimonial too. This may be more costly, as it will require some production, but you can also get your customers to shoot a short video of themselves at home.
Video is the best format when you want to tell a story. It allows your customers’ experiences to truly shine through. Not to mention, if you can prove the video features a real person who is not associated with your company, you will be adding an extra layer of trust to the testimonial. You can provide this proof by linking out to their social media pages, for example.
Here’s an example from Codeacademy with a video on their stories page. Although this video clearly boasts some professional production values, the real beauty of it lies in the stories being told and the genuineness of the people telling them.
Source: codeacademy.com
Final Thoughts
Having reviews or testimonials on your pages is an amazing way to boost conversion rates and add that additional dimension to your marketing message. The usual principles of design, copywriting, and storytelling still apply: be genuine and honest, and match your customer’s search intent and pain points as much as you possibly can.