Because we’re living in a cynical shopping age, Testimonials on your website have become more important. Your copywriting firm (all over the world-Melbourne to Toronto) knows this, but do you?

Unfortunately, the term “testimonial” tends to connote (disdainfully, for some audiences) an image of a preacher thumping some holy writ text and declaring evidence for his deity. That’s not the kind of testimonial I mean.

Testimonials should be given by customers to companies. Testimonials  create trust with your audience as they show the typical experience your customer has with your company. By nature, testimonials should never be purchased, but given sincerely.

Why do testimonials create trust with strangers?

Because, like the rating system on E-Bay, testimonials in your SEO website copy show evidence for people’s experience working with you.

Do you always have to have a testimonial?

You should be building evidence throughout your entire website copy. It’s no longer good enough to have unsubstantiated claims in any of your sales and marketing copy.

Unfortunately, because we grew up learning to write in an academic culture (and few can claim that they mastered it) customers aren’t’ always able to write meaningful testimonials for us. And you don’t want to have a whole bunch of testimonials just saying the same thing, or being “fluffy”: which is, to say something that doesn’t really tell the stranger on your website much about what it is like to really work with you.

How to get testimonials for your business you want instead of “fluff”:

1. Write what you’d like them to say, and get them to sign off. Time and use of language are not always available to the customer so writing someone meaningful about your work together is often more expedient.
2. Have an external party Interview your clients with a set of questions. Make sure that external party is qualified to ask the right questions so that when your customer gives a “fluffy” answer, they are able to help the customer clarify what they meant.
3. Order the Testimonial Collection Service from Tangible Words (yes, we do #1 and #2 as well as integrate evidence meaningfully into your website copy)