These are some of the questions we get asked all the time by our clients, so we’ve put together this post with our best tips to get great client testimonials for your website.

Why should you bother with testimonials?

Being able to share tangible proof that you’ve delivered results for your previous and existing customers and clients is fundamental to the success of your business.

Here are a few reasons why we believe client testimonials are so useful for your business:

• They help you build trust.
• They show your website visitors that you helped your past clients to get real, tangible results.
• They help you increase your level of authority. If you can share testimonials from people who are highly respected in the industry, you immediately become more credible and authoritative in the eyes of your prospective clients.
• They help you showcase the types of clients you want to attract. For example, we love working with personal brands, so on our website, we mainly feature testimonials from personal brands we’ve built websites for.

However, in order to give you some of the above results, client testimonials need to be well-thought out and well-crafted. Not all testimonials are created equal, so don’t go sharing just any old review!

Let’s dig a bit deeper into that.

Do generic reviews help you get more clients?

You know the one we’re talking about. Those big, boastful testimonials where people only promote themselves. But think about it, do website visitors even read those? Do they trust them? And do they really help consumers make informed buying decisions?

Probably not.

Of course, when you’re just starting out in business, it’s only natural you’ll want to get some testimonials on your website (and any would pretty much do). But when you’re well-established, be sure to remove any old or vague testimonials that were provided to you by someone who isn’t your ideal client.

When you’ve done enough work to build a strong portfolio of work, avoid sharing reviews along the lines of: “Oh, I really enjoyed working with Martin. He’s very friendly and professional and I would highly recommend.”

We hate to burst your bubble, but these are exactly the kind of reviews you don’t want on your website. They don’t offer anything in terms of content, and people glaze over these kinds of testimonials. You probably do as well. After all, isn’t ‘being friendly and professional’ the bare minimum you’d expect from a company or a professional you hire?!

Do people even trust star rating reviews?

As consumers, we’re all too familiar with big review websites like TripAdvisor or Yell, where you have an abundance of these ’empty reviews’. All people expect to see on these sites are 5-star reviews – the more the better. But star rating reviews probably aren’t going to add much value to your website. We all know that a website owner has full control over what gets published on their site. You wouldn’t show a 3-star review or a complaint someone has left you, would you? You’d be shooting yourself in the foot! So if someone visits your website and sees you have plenty of 5-star reviews that say you’re friendly and professional, they could get a bit wary. What about all the other reviews you haven’t shown? What’s everyone else saying?

Instead, what you need to show on your website is the actual value you deliver.

How to Get a Testimonial Your Potential Customers will Love

What your prospective customers and clients care about the most? The results you can help them achieve.

The best way to convince them that you can help them get results is by showing them, in the words of your previous clients. So walk people through the story of that project – go through the ups and downs, the before and after, and the results you got in the end. Essentially, think about your client as being the hero of the story.

When a visitor is coming to your website, they want to know:

1. What problems this other person who’s just like them was having before they hired you.
2. What you helped them achieve.
3. How they’re now so much happier now, after working with you and achieving the results they were after.

This is an opportunity to show your client’s transformation!

How to Get the Best Testimonial from a Client

Getting someone to leave you a review of this kind with no guidance is a tall order.

So how do you get reviews from your existing clients that will appeal to your website visitors (and prospective clients) as well?

Well for starters, here’s what you don’t do. You don’t just email your client after you’ve done the work for them and ask:

“Please, can you leave me a few lines of text?”

We used to do that, and we can tell you that just doesn’t work.

If your client Bob has had a problem that he’d been struggling with for years, and you helped him achieve all he’s ever hoped for, we’ll bet you anything Bob will say: “Jammy Digital was friendly and professional, and they helped me get what I wanted.”

If you share that, you’ll have wasted the opportunity to show a potential client what it was like to work on that project with you! Instead, you want your testimonials to act as a sales tool and tell the story of the transformation you’ve helped your client achieve.

What should I ask my previous clients to collect effective testimonials?

We created a system that we try to use as much as possible in order to get the client testimonials that will work best for our business. And here’s something you can do too:

Ask your clients specific questions that allow you to craft an effective testimonial.

Of course, the types of questions you might ask may vary depending on your industry and field, but essentially you want to focus on the frustrations or problems your clients were having before working with you.

So here are some of the questions we ask.

1. What problems were you having before working with us?
2. Why did you hire us?

These are two very different questions, so make sure you ask them both!

3. How does your new website solve your original problem?
4. What results have you got since going live with your new website?

These questions may not be relevant to you, but you could ask how working with you or buying your product or service has helped the client solve that problem.

5. What did you like or didn’t like about us or our service?

This question allows you to get an insight into what it was like for your client to work with you. This is great for you and your business – you get some honest feedback and get to find out what people like (or don’t like) about working with you. It’s a very powerful process that allows you to discover problems that exist within your industry. Plus, you’re able to relate to your client. Listening to and understanding your customers shows that you care and makes you much better at what you do!

Not to mention that through asking these questions you can get plenty of ideas for content and tips to improve your web copy.

How do I gather the information and craft effective testimonials?

Everyone’s busy, and your clients are too. So how exactly do you get them to answer all these questions for you?
Here’s how we do it.

We set up a video call with our clients shortly after taking their website live. And while we give them the final bits of instructions and make sure everything’s okay, we tell them we’d like to ask them a few questions to create a case study or testimonials to share on our website. Nine times out of ten, people are very happy to answer any questions we might have!

A few tips:

1. Have the questions prepared in advance, so you can ask them on the call if they agree.
2. Record the call if the client’s happy with that, or write the answers down.
3. Whenever you can, make sure you repeat their answers back to them, to check your understanding is correct.
4. Be prepared to probe a little and ask deeper questions if you feel the answers are too generic and don’t really capture the essence of the problem your client was experiencing. Marcus Sheridan talks about ‘the rule of three’, which says that the first answer somebody gives is usually the surface-level answer. It’s only when you ask three times that you really get down to the root cause of the problem. So get deeper and talk about the juicy stuff!

Before you know it, you’ll have created your testimonial live on the call. Once you’re done, tell them you’re going to write this up and send it to them to make sure they’re happy with it.

Why not take it a step further and ask for a video testimonial?

Once you’ve had your call and have gone through the questions, why not ask your client if they wouldn’t mind recording a quick video testimonial for you? Video testimonials are absolutely amazing, and they don’t need to be long or complicated. A quick video recorded on someone’s smartphone will do. We know of businesses who’ll hire a video company to go out and sit with the client, shoot a video, and professionally record it and edit it. But you don’t have to go to such extent if you don’t want to.

If you want to see an example of this technique in action, this is exactly what we did with one of the members of our online membership, Make Your Mark Online. We provided the questions and asked Sara to record a video talking about her experience of joining our membership. Have a read of her honest review and watch her video here.

Just remember that the most important thing (and what everyone wants out of a testimonial) is to see the results you got for your previous clients. Through sharing effective testimonials on your website, you want your prospective clients to believe they’re going to get those results too.

You want them to relate to the testimonial.

We get people results!

If you didn’t already know, we have a free Facebook group where we provide free training and free website critiques every Wednesday afternoon. We’d love you to join and put your name forward for a critique, so we can help you get better results from your website.

And if you want to get a lot deeper and get tailored advice and support with your website, you can join the Make Your Mark online membership. This is our signature membership community where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. The doors for the membership are currently open and will close again in two weeks. Don’t miss your chance to join for only $39 a month or $390 a year!

Martin & Lyndsay

The post How to get client testimonials for your website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

But when you’re not pulling in enough enquiries or sales, it might be time to examine what’s going wrong.

The only thing is, it’s often difficult for you to identify any issues with your site, especially if you’ve designed it yourself, and haven’t had a professional to help.

When you’re building a website yourself, you tend to focus on one thing…how it looks.

This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s only ONE of the MANY factors that go into a successful website. And if you’re not careful, you could be missing out on business.

Over the years, we’ve noticed that many business owners make the same mistakes with their websites. Consequently, they see limited results.

This is why we launched our “website critique” service. This is where we review your website and send you a 30-minute video with our advice and feedback so you can make improvements.

Over the past 12 months since starting this service, our clients have experienced dramatic growth as a result of our feedback.

But how do you know if YOU will benefit from a website critique? Below, I’ve listed the six main reasons you might need some honest feedback about your website.

1. You need some honest feedback on the design

The way your website looks is SO important, and it can make the difference between generating sales and hearing crickets. If you have an attractive, easy-to-use website, then more people will stick around and potentially do business with you.

However, if your website looks dated and it’s difficult to use, it WILL affect your bottom line. It’s a real shame because you might have spent time creating a useful website, but an unattractive or un-user-friendly design will put people off.

How will a website critique help?

We’ll give you some honest feedback about the design of your website. From our years of experience, we understand what makes a good website and what doesn’t.

In a website critique, we will tell you what we think about your site and what we would change. It might be as simple as changing a few colours or fonts, or we might suggest changing the layout and style to make it more user-friendly.

2. You’re not ranking well on Google, and you don’t know why

Every day, people are using search engines to find products and services like yours, and people trust Google to deliver the best results. This is why it’s so important that you are found online.

If you’re not ranking on the first page of search results for relevant key phrases, you’re likely missing out on visitors and sales.

For most businesses, organic search is the number one source of traffic, so it’s understandable why so many people need help increasing their rankings.

How will a website critique help?

We will analyse your website from a search engine perspective and give you specific changes that you can make to improve your search engine rankings.

We’ll look through your website and tell you if you’re making any mistakes and how to correct them.

We’ll also run a full technical audit to see if there are any underlying issues that are preventing you from being found online.

3. You’re not converting visitors into leads

Your website is not just an online business card, it has a job to do. It should be delivering a steady flow of new enquires all the time. The type of lead or enquiry depends on your business but here are a few examples:

• Contact form entries
• Phone calls
• Free online consultations
• Email subscribers

Whatever it is you want your visitors to do, your website needs to encourage your users to take some kind of action.

Far too often we don’t give our users clear direction. We leave them to wander around our website in the hopes that they will get in touch, and they rarely do.

How will a website critique help?

We’ll review your website fully and assess how you can increase your lead generation. There could be a problem with the design and layout of your website, or there could be an issue with the copy you’re using. We’ll give you some tips to improve your leads and enquiries.

4. You’re not making enough sales

You could have the best-looking website in the world, but if nobody is buying from you what’s the point? There’s nothing worse than spending time and money building a new website only to have it generate no sales.

The old adage “build it and they will come” is simply not true when it comes to your website. There is so much competition out there you have to be extremely focused on making your products and service stand out from the crowd.

For someone to feel confident buying from you, you need to build up a certain amount of trust. Your prospects want to feel like they’re making the right decision and it’s your job to make them feel safe when handing over their cash.

How will a website critique help?

There are a few key things you can do on your website to build trust, that you might not already be doing. We’ll review your website and identify any opportunities to improve this and increase sales.

We’ll also take a look at you sales pages and product pages to see if you’re including all the right information and addressing your visitors objections.

Another reason people might not buy from you is because they have certain questions that you might not answer on your website. We’ll help you come up with a content plan so your visitors learn more about your products and services, which should lead to more customers.

5. Users are leaving your website quickly

You only have a few seconds to grab someone’s attention when they visit your website. Fail to do this, and they’ll lose interest and click the back button. You probably do this when browsing online too.

There are many reasons someone might leave your site quickly, including a lack of clear direction, inability to communicate what it is you do, messy design, etc.

All of this will impact user experience and cause your visitor to be frustrated and leave quickly.

How will a website critique help?

We can advise you how to captivate your audience before they leave your site. There are certain design principles you can do to engage your visitors and keep them around for longer.

We’ll take a look at your website and tell you what you can do to help your users consume more of your content.

6. Your traffic numbers are low

If your website isn’t getting a lot of traffic, it can be really frustrating. You’ve spent time creating a website, and nobody is visiting it. The more relevant visitors you have, the more potential buyers you have.

It’s also worth mentioning that without a consistent flow of visitors, you won’t be able to get a good understanding of how people are using your website, what you can improve and what you may need to get rid of.

Having the data will allow you to make certain adjustments to your website that will increase sales.

How will a website critique help?

There are many things you can do to start generating more website traffic, and I’m not talking about paying for advertising.

We’ll help you come up with a strategy so you can start reaching more people. This might mean making your website more search engine friendly, or we can spend some time looking at your content to see if it’s good enough to attract more visitors.

Summary

If you’re concerned about your website and think it might not be performing well enough, let us know. We can tell you if we think a website critique is the right way to go.

If you want to book your website critique now, then click the button below and get started. We’ll send you your 30-minute video in the next seven days.

Over to you

Have you suffered from any of these website problems before, how did you overcome them? I’d be interested to know in the comments below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post 6 warning signs you need a website critique appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.