I often suggest to clients to include reviews or testimonials on their websites. I think it is a good way of showcasing your talents, ethos and how you work with customers.
At the time of writing this, my Testimonials page is in the top 5 most viewed pages for my website along with my Homepage (to be expected), my Portfolio, my About page and the page about Website design specifically. So it is definitely a valuable page for me! And so I think for many other businesses too. People buy from people and especially so in a small or medium sized businesses so it is really worth prioritising on a website.
Types of reviews
There are 3 main methods for including reviews or testimonials on a website and each has pro’s and con’s.
1. Manually added reviews
By this I mean, where the website owner has manually collected feedback from their clients and typed the comments into the website. (Having a website designed using WordPress allows you the option to do this yourself after training!) This allows the greatest flexibility with display and if the reviews are accompanied with names and locations, it ensures that they appear genuine.
But it does mean that it is important to keep updating these over time and if you decide to display a date with the review then you need to ensure that some are recent. A good example of this is on the Lilac and Lace Floral Design website that I designed. Rebecca is great at keeping the reviews up to date and you can feel the warmth and appreciation from all of her customers shining through their comments. Including a photo of each wedding is a great idea too keeping it personal and visual. Take a look at Lilac and Lace’s testimonials here: https://www.lilac-and-lace.co.uk/testimonials/
2. Embedded Google or Facebook reviews
This provides a more automated display of reviews that have been collected via Google or Facebook and are displayed on your website automatically via a plugin. Google and Facebook are the most commonly used review platforms I would suggest, especially for local businesses. Some of the plugins for this functionality have a cost attached to them in order to use all the features so it costs more than the manual option above. But then it does save time in that any new reviews added appear as if by magic not requiring any input from you. The display is a bit more regimented than one we can design but you can adjust colours and fonts to suit the website styling. A good example of this is on the website I designed for Harris Flooring – take a look here as Matt has gathered some great 5* reviews : https://www.mjharrisflooring.co.uk/testimonials
Another benefit to using Google reviews especially is that it means that the number of reviews are shown in Google listings which can really encourage people to click through. Here’s how Harris Flooring appears with 202 5* reviews! Clearly providing a great service!
3. Other reviews
And this covers a miscellaneous set of other providers who collect reviews. Options include companies like Checkatrade or TrustaTrader or Reviews. Usually if reviews are collected by another company, then there is a way to embed them into a WordPress website. Like Google and Facebook above, these are automated and so require little input from you once they’ve been set up on a website. An example of this is for another of my clients – Percipio Training. They collect reviews according to the course taken. So rather than display all the reviews on a single page, we chose to add a section at the bottom of each course information page relating to that course only. As they have so many reviews! You can see how this looks on a Health & safety award page at the bottom: https://www.percipio-training.co.uk/health-safety/habc-level-2-award-in-coshh/
There is also an additional ‘badge’ included in the footer totalling the reviews and grading as well.
Summary
So as you can see, there lots of options for displaying reviews on individual Testimonial or Review pages, or as a scrolling or carousel section on a Homepage or on specific categorised pages. But whichever option you decide to incorporate, there is no doubt that good reviews from real customers help to set you apart from your competitors and showcase your talents!
