How to Display your Amazing Testimonials on your Website
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Using testimonials on your website and in your marketing is a great way to help you sell your services without having to feel sleazy or salesy. If you’re not sure if you need to be using them, the short answer is, YES, you do!
Here’s why you should be using testimonials and some tips on how to get the best ones. To recap:
Using testimonials on your website shows that people are investing in you so others will feel more confident doing it too, they help build credibility for your business so your potential clients trust you more, they give you ideas to help improve your services, and they help you sell without selling (and in a way where people will often pay more!)
A good testimonial will touch on the pain points your client had before working with you, the benefit they had after working with you and the excitement of the client, which helps to get our potential clients excited themselves. It will also include the person's full name, position, and a photo. Bonus points if the testimonial includes facts and figures to support the result!
To get the best testimonials, we need to ask for them and give an outline for our client to follow, such as a questionnaire that can help guide the answers they give
Once you have your testimonials, you need to use them! Create graphics for social media and sprinkle them throughout your website when you mention your service. That is where this post comes in!
Where to display testimonials on our website
You don’t want to just throw up a testimonial page and hope that someone will look there. Let’s be real, it would be a pretty boring page to read! Instead, you want to showcase these words of praise strategically throughout your website.
There are a few important places to consider placing testimonials on your website:
You’re homepage so you can showcase the positive experience people have had working with you to encourage people to click through to learn more about working with you
On your services page since it could give an extra nudge to someone who is on the fence about working with you because this is where someone will be making their purchasing decisions
Near newsletter sign up forms, contact forms or calls to action so your visitors can see other people have had a good experience with your offering and will be more likely to sign up or contact you
Basically, you could include a relevant testimonial wherever you are asking someone to take action. Just make sure you choose the ones that fit best with the action you want someone to take so that your visitor is really driven to act.
How to add testimonials to your website in a way that looks good
Here are 6 ideas for ways you can display testimonials on your website that look good and add to the design of the page rather than taking away from it.
Testimonial Slider (text only)
To create a testimonial slider, you:
Click on Pages from the main menu
Next to the Not Linked section on the left, click the + to add a new page and select Blog
Name the new blog something like Testimonials or Client Love so it’s easily recognizable in later steps
Click into the blog and click the + button in the top left next to the blog name to add a new post
Add the clients name as the post title, then click the options tab at the top and paste the testimonial into the excerpt section along with the name of your client, their title and company, and a link to their website if you want to include it
Format the text with headings, bold or italic if you want the testimonial to display differently to the name (you’ll use these settings for each of your testimonials, so make sure you remember what they are or write them down!)
Repeat steps 4-6 for each testimonial that you want to add
Now the blog is set up and the testimonials are saved, head to where you want to display them on your website
Click the insert point to add a new block and select Carousel from the Summary Block section
Now to set up the Summary Block. On the first Content tab at the top, you will select the new blog you created. On Layout tab and Display tab at the top, select the below settings, then click apply in the bottom right:
Header Text: Blank
Aspect Ratio: Auto
Items Per Row: 1
Text Size: As you like
Text Alignment: As you like
Number of Items: How many testimonials you want to rotate through
Display: Show Excerpt should be checked (show title, thumbnail and read more link should be unchecked)
Primary and Secondary Metadata: None
Testimonial Slider (with text + photos)
To add photos to your testimonial slider, you use the same steps as above, with 2 small changes:
On step 5, you would add your photo under the Thumbnail image section
On step 10, Show Thumbnail should be checked
Alternating Text and Photos
This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial.
Jennifer Blake, Social Media Manager for Socially You
This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial.
Allison Summers, Style Bloggers at Style Me Pretty
This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial.
Naomi Jones, Mindset Coach from Happy Life Coaching
If you want to have a few testimonials showing together in a group without someone needing to click through to read them, you could use alternating text and image blocks.
Add an image block with your first photo
Add a text block with the testimonial that goes with it
Drag the testimonial to the right of the image until the line between the two turns dark grey and drop the testimonial in place. Drag the line between the photo and testimonial until the photo and testimonial display the sizes you want them to
Add a spacer block below the photo and testimonial
Repeat steps 1-3 but with the testimonial on the left of the image
Add another spacer block below the photo and testimonial and repeat steps 1-5 until all of your photos and testimonials are in place.
Stacked Image Block
This is a testimonial where someone has written something amazing about the service provided.
Jenni Blake, Social Media Manager for Socially You
This is a testimonial where someone has written something amazing about the service provided.
Allison Summers, Style Bloggers at Style Me Pretty
To display your testimonials in a stacked image block:
Click on the insert point, scroll down to images section and select Stacked
Add the image, then click Apply
Paste your testimonial into the Subtitle section below the photo and add bold or italic styling to the testimonial or who it’s from
Repeat for any remaining testimonials
Drag images side-by-side and click on the lines between them to adjust the size so they match (I would use 2-3 side by side but no more than that or it starts to look funny)
Head to Site Styles and adjust the styles by clicking on the photo to bring up all settings. Have fun adjusting the fonts, font colors, adding a box around the text, etc. For these ones, I had the photos cropped to a circle when I uploaded them, and I added a background color to the text to create the box around it
Collage Image Block
This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial.
Jennifer Blake, Social Media Manager for Socially You
To display your testimonials in a collage image block:
Click on the insert point, scroll down to images section and select Collage
Add the image, then click Apply
Paste your testimonial into the Subtitle section below the photo and add bold or italic styling to the testimonial or who it’s from
Repeat for any remaining testimonials
Head to Site Styles and adjust the styles by clicking on the photo to bring up all settings. Have fun adjusting the fonts, font colors, and box color, etc to make it your own
Quote Block
This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial. This is a testimonial.
Allison Summers, Style Bloggers at Style Me Pretty
If you don’t have images or just want to include the testimonial by itself, you could add it in a text block, highlight it and select “ from the text editor to make it stand out more. If you add it in it’s own text box, you can even drag it around the page to add it where you want so it stands out, such as dragging it beside the main text on the page so they are side by side. Just remember to use bold, italic or a heading so it’s emphasized compared to the regular text on the page.
There you have it, 6 fun ways to display testimonials on your website! These can easily be customized to suit the rest of your page as well, so you can play around with the text editor styles or in Site Styles to really make them look the way you like.
I’d love to know how you display testimonials on your website. Let me know in the comments below!
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