The proverbial carrot dangling on a stick above an online marketer’s head is the ever-elusive conversion rate improvement.

We always need to raise our ratio; endlessly yearn to achieve the goal. And when we finally do, we increase the goal and need to improve even more.

Sign up for the Spectoos testimonial platform to improve your conversation rates.

The secret weapon to improving conversions (as “secret” as an industry-wide best practice can be) is, of course, to utilize landing pages. Landing pages work because they can focus on a specific buyer persona with a specific need, as opposed to a homepage that caters to all traffic.

For example, let’s say your company sells photos and images like Dreamstime or 123RF. If your ad targets online bloggers who need new images for their blog posts, you can create a landing page especially for that purpose. And, if a different ad targets teachers who need images for classroom presentations, you can create a landing page for them.

You will definitely increase your conversion rate simply by using landing pages. In fact, according to Hubspot, 92% of marketers find landing pages to be effective.So, it comes as no surprise that a critical first step to raising conversion rate is to use landing pages.

And, to increase your landing page conversion rate even further, you need to feature customer testimonials on your landing page.

Why Customer Testimonials on Landing Pages Are Effective

The reason why featuring customer testimonials on your landing page is so effective is because they build trust.

The main purpose of a landing page is to convert visitors to take the next step in your sales funnel. And, the only way that will happen is if you build trust with your visitors. Customer testimonials do exactly that. Most visitors won’t trust your product blindly, if no one else recommends it.

In fact, according to Invesp, customers spend 31% more with a brand that has “excellent” reviews.

Customer Testimonials Examples on Landing Pages: Great Tips for Higher Conversion Rates

Customer testimonials add credibility, reliability, and trustworthiness. Use them correctly on your landing pages and your conversion rate will rise. Here are five great examples of customer testimonials that actually work:

1. Get customer testimonials from your target audience

For example, if your landing page caters to prospective students, use testimonials from current students reflecting on their experiences. Check out the Khan Academy, for instance. They feature testimonials from their own students on their website where they share their personal stories:

khan academy student testimonials

A potential student visiting Khan Academy’s site and seeing how their school has changed the lives of so many students, will most likely be happy to learn with them as well.

2. Use visual customer testimonials with photos or video

Another way to make customer testimonials more powerful is by making them more visual.

Video content has been steadily gaining popularity in recent years. According to HubSpot, 43% of people want to see more video content from marketers. And, it’s not for no reason. Video is a highly effective way of conveying messages to your audience. 51.9% of marketing professionals worldwide have even named video as the content type with the best ROI.

Customer video testimonial examples include ones like this video about Slack:

What’s interesting about this video is that it serves two purposes simultaneously. The video serves as a testimonial because Sandwich Video Inc, the company who made it, uses Slack. And, the video serves as a demo because it walks the viewers through all of Slack’s features.

3. Add social proof to your testimonials

If you are targeting SMEs and Seth Godin or KISSmetrics are not yet raving about your product, you can still get a lot of value from adding customer testimonials to your key landing pages. A great way to do this is through social proof.

Again, you want to select testimonials from within your target audience and connect them to the reviewer’s social profile. For example, KeyScouts, an online marketing agency that targets SMEs use a socially proven customer testimonial widget that links to authentic LinkedIn profiles.

keyscouts testimonial faceboard widget

Although most visitors don’t know the people behind the testimonials, the fact that they can verify their identity on LinkedIn makes a big difference, and serves as a fantastic testament to a credible and trustworthy company.

For trustworthy and authentic testimonials, sign up for Spectoos today.

4. Place customer testimonials properly on your landing page

Where testimonials are placed on your page has an important effect on how they are received. You want to place them prominently to benefit from the credibility and trustworthiness they project, while the key focus of your landing page remains your Call to Action (CTA) buttons.

A customer testimonial that overshadows a CTA may actually work against you.

Here are a couple of examples of landing pages that have testimonials strategically placed without demoting other important page elements:

muckrack

chownow

5. Know which testimonials are working best

If you’re using several testimonials on your page, surely you understand that some testimonials will most likely work better than others. If you could tell which testimonials perform better, you could further improve your conversion rate by removing the not-so-effective testimonials and highlighting the best ones.

Problem is, that’s easier said than done.

Luckily, there are tools that can help you figure this out. Whether you’re using Google Analytics or a dedicated testimonials platform such as Spectoos with built-in reporting capabilities – don’t give up measuring and optimizing your testimonials, because it will pay off big time.

Spectoos dashboard

Customer Testimonials on Landing Pages: The Bottom Line?

Implement customer testimonials on your landing pages that are:

  • Targeted to your specific audience.
  • Visual with photos or video.
  • Socially proven and linked to social profiles that can be easily verified.
  • Placed properly on your landing page.
  • Measured to know which testimonials are working best.

Once you do, you’ll see your conversion rate increase significantly.

Have you tried using testimonials on your site? Any lessons learned? You are welcome to share your thoughts with us.

use testimonials to increase conversions

Also published on Medium.