Small Business Web Site Testimonials

Even if you are only operating a niche business online, web site testimonials can confer legitimacy and likeability to your project. In almost every e-business situation, testimonials can help. That said, you need to employ rave reviews about your products judiciously.

Rule number one is: never make up testimonials. Even if you manage to “get away with it,” you’re doing a disservice to your clients by misrepresenting your business capacities. Instead, solicit real testimonials from clients, and ask to use full names, email addresses, and phone numbers where possible -- customers who visit your web site will appreciate the potential opportunity to contact your company’s witnesses, even if they very rarely follow through and call/email them.

Make sure that your testimonials are terse. If someone gives you a long block of text, cut it up into pieces and post different sound bites on different pages. Don’t hide all your testimonials on one landing page -- distribute them throughout your site so web site visitors get bombarded by positive feedback from like-minded consumers. Choose descriptive quotes over excited/enthusiastic quotes. Avoid using exclamation points unless the client explicitly includes them in his or her testimonial.

Similarly, don’t capitalize, underline, or bold your testimonials unless there’s a really good reason. Clients can see through attempts to gussy up other people’s language, and they may penalize you for doing so by leaving your web site or simply discounting the testimonials as illegitimate.

All that said, personalizing your web site can generate real and measurable conversion results. Consider adding a founder’s statement or statement of purpose to your web site. When customers read your words and hear your voice, they’ll likely be more apt to create a relationship with you. Add pictures to testimonials, as well. The more closely a testimonial resembles a real life human review, the more powerful it can be. Indeed, some web site merchants are already experimenting with video testimonials to grab consumers.

Finally, don’t shy away from testimonials which knock your products and services a bit. If you promote your web site or your e-business as infallible, you lose out on the believability factor a bit. If, on the other hand, you acknowledge some of the flaws and deficits in your approach -- as well as the positive attributes -- you’ll earn significant trust, and you can winnow your visitors even more, thus hopefully improving your ratio of contacts to conversions.

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