The Anatomy of WordPress Testimonials

Since ancient times, testimonials and referrals have been the most powerful signals of trust. 

Let’s look at some situations:

• Whenever you want to buy something you are looking at reviews, right?
• While on holiday, most of us check Tripadvisor for travel and food recommendations.
• When you are getting married, you are asking friends for advice when choosing the photographer, the DJ, etc.
• You check Glassdoor reviews when looking for a job.
• You want to buy an invoicing service for your business, you check the product testimonials.

and the list goes on.

Peer reviews are crucial in most of our decisions, because, in our brains, we make the assumptions that the actions of others are a reflection of correct behavior. And because we all belong to certain tribes, we will behave similarly inside our tribe. 

Persuasive testimonials from happy customers can convince hard to decide prospects. This means you need testimonials in your marketing and social proof toolbelt. Specialists would call this the word-of-mouth marketing channel.

Now, two questions arise:

• Which are the best ways of showing off testimonials on your WordPress website?
• How can you implement testimonials in your WordPress website?

Let’s find some answers below.

 

WordPress testimonials best case practices

Testimonials’ content

A recommendation here: make sure you use real photos of people. You can include their name, the role/function as well.

If you focus on certain markets with some of your products, you can even include the country of the person giving you the testimonial.

Let’s say your focus right now is on doing graphic design for US and Scandinavian customers. If you place a testimonial from someone in Greece, it won’t have the same value as a testimonial from someone in Sweden. Like I said earlier, we all belong to certain tribes. The tribes can be as small as our family and can grow to the size of a country, or region.

In terms of copy and content, ideally, you would pick a testimonial that reflects:

• the way your product helped solve a pain,
• the way your product delivered the solution to a problem.

Don’t put testimonials with “I love the product”… it’s too vague.

 

Testimonials’ placement

The first rule here: make sure each testimonial is relevant to the page.

The homepage is the most important section of a website. Social proof should be placed there in order to appear reliable and trustworthy.

A best-case practice here is to place them really close to the header because you need to incentivize users to scroll for more information.

Source: sujanpatel.com

 

If you have multiple product pages, you need to place on each page relevant testimonials to the product. 

Another trick is placing your testimonials next to calls to action (CTA’s) such as “Contact us”, “Book a call”, “See the demo”, “Sign up”, etc. The testimonial could serve as a trigger and could get your users to take action (to buy, download something, etc)

You can even have testimonials on your career pages from your employees.

You could even have testimonials on the blog’s sidebar, but, as I said, keep it contextual. If your blog article speaks about a cool case study of yours, then it makes sense to have a testimonial in the sidebar.

 

Testimonials design

You can go with a single testimonial, if powerful enough (like the one below), or go with more testimonials (grid, carousel design).

Source: invisionapp.com

 

The most popular testimonials are in the following formats:

• Quotes
• Quote + image
• Video testimonials

If you are in B2B, you could even use your case studies instead of testimonials, they can be really powerful.

Source: netguru.com

For more inspiration, check this collection of testimonials design.

 

WordPress testimonials: website implementation

Here we go. You’ve collected your kudos, now it’s time to show them off.

I’ve got three ways for you to do that.

 

WordPress testimonials – the Gutenberg experience implementation

The Gutenberg experience is still in its infancy. There’s a lot to be done on the design side. But, if you’re looking for something really basic in terms of testimonials, here’s how, courtesy of WordPress.com

Implementing WordPress testimonials using WordPress builders

Head over to Appearance -> Customizer. Now, we are using our very own Colibri builder for the demonstration.

There are pre-designed testimonial blocks, both in the free and paid version.

You can view these blocks, from the “+”option. Under the “Blocks” section type “testimonials”.

A simple click will add your desired block to your WordPress site.

There’s another option as well. From the preview, scroll down to the bottom, and select “Add Predefined Blocks” It will pop up the same Blocks and Components window.

Aaaand, you’re done. Easy peasy.

Placing WordPress testimonials via plugins

 If your theme does not have an option for testimonials, you’ll probably need to rely on plugins. They allow for lots of customizations and can get the job done.

But, before jumping to the first WordPress testimonial plugin you encounter, here’s what you should evaluate:

• Mobile responsiveness
• The possibility to add multiple media formats (text, images, video)
• Pre-defined templates
• Shortcoder 
• Custom CSS options (if you want to be more hands-on)
• Can you import reviews from 3rd party sources?

Check the reviews, the rating of the product, in order to make an informed decision.

Now, as per the plugin installation, it’s quite straightforward.

Our tutorial will shine a light on how to work with plugins, in under 2 minutes.

Now that you know how to install your plugin, let’s pick one, shall we?

 

The 5 most popular WordPress testimonial plugins

1. Strong testimonials

Source: https://wordpress.org/plugins/strong-testimonials/

 

The Strong Testimonials WordPress plugin has over 1.000.000 active installs. What’s cool about it is the fact that you can import reviews from: Facebook, Google My Business, WooCommerce, and more.

Let’s take a sneak peek inside the most important features:

• Custom testimonial collection form fields
• Schema.org markup
• Professionally designed themes 
• CSS styling
• Drag and drop option to reorder testimonials

 

2. Testimonial rotator

Source: https://wordpress.org/plugins/testimonial-rotator/

 

With over 60k downloads, the Testimonials Rotator is among the most popular WordPress testimonials plugins out there. Its name kinda says it all, it allows you to add rotating testimonials anywhere on your WordPress website.

Let’s peek inside, shall we?

These are its best features:

• Ability to make custom templates
• Vertical Align Testimonials based on Height
• Ability to show the Add Rotator section based on User Role
• Shortcodes option

 

3. Easy testimonials

Source: https://wordpress.org/plugins/easy-testimonials/

 

With over 30k downloads, the Easy testimonials WordPress plugin is Gutenberg-ready. Testimonials can be placed as widgets, or using shortcodes, inside pages, post, or across sidebars.

 

It has a lot of features so that you don’t miss any opportunity:

• 25 professionally designed themes included for free
• Can show random testimonials with every website loading
• Can show recent testimonials
• Forms for testimonial collection 
• Images display
• Mobile responsive
• Excel testimonials import
• CSS styling

  

4. Testimonials widget

Source: https://wordpress.org/plugins/testimonials-widget/

 

The plugin has more than 30.000 active installs and allows you to insert testimonials via:

• Shortcodes
• Theme functions
• Widgets 

This WordPress testimonials plugin works really well with portfolios, quotes, reviews, ratings. It’s built to allow testimonials design using text, images or videos.

It allows for various transitioning options, but you can always customize using CSS.

 

5. Testimonial

Source: https://wordpress.org/plugins/testimonial-free/

 

This plugin has more than 20.000 active installs and it allows you to display reviews, ratings, quotes, and testimonials through shortcodes. It’s fully responsive, user-friendly, and easy to stylize.

 

Important features comparison for WordPress testimonial plugins

Now, I’m going to make it easier for you to decide. I’m wrapping up a bit all of the above features.

 

	Import reviews from Facebook & other	Shortcode option	Sliding testimonials	Pre-designed themes/layouts	Mobile responsive	Gutenberg – ready
Strong Testimonials	✓	✓	✓	✓	N/A	✓
Testimonials Rotator	N/A	✓	✓	✓	✓	N/A
Easy testimonials	N/A	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Testimonial	N/A	✓	✓	✓	✓	N/A
Testimonial widget	N/A	✓	✓	N/A	✓	N/A

 

Conclusion

Word-of-mouth is still the best marketing channel out there. 

You need to do your job right, and then shout it to the world. Testimonials can help you with the second part. A job well done, well, that can be tough.

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