How to give your company’s website credibility (#4 of 5)
AUTHOR: Tom Perkins
92% of consumers around the world say they trust testimonials above all other forms of advertising so it makes total business sense to include some form of testimonial on your website. If new customers are looking for evidence that your current clients are happy, then it’s essential to make it really easy for them to find when they come to your website for the first time.There are a number of different ways to prove that you have happy clients and share their positive experiences of working with you, on your website, so let’s take a look at them:
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1) Case studies
This is the age old approach of “show, not tell”. Show your would-be customer how great your products or services are by telling a story about how a current client has benefited from working with you. Case studies can be any length you require – from 300 words to several pages - it all depends on your audience and what they would be looking for. The easiest way to create case studies is to talk to one of your happy clients and ask them to tell you:
- What the problem was they had before they came to you
- How they found you and why they chose to work with you
- The experience they had of buying your product/service
- The difference your product/service has made to their world
- Why they would recommend you to others
With that information you can write up a short case study showing how your company has helped another business in a way that potential new customers can relate to. The more measurable, tangible benefits you can include, such as the amount of money saved, or the amount of time saved, the more appealing the case study will be to would-be customers. Help them to visualise how your product could help them with their situation.
Ideally you would need to have one case study for each industry/problem area that your products/services cover, so that you have something relevant for every potential client who comes to your website. Case studies not only provide great examples for website visitors to relate to, but they also help to rank your site higher in the search engines as they are considered to be authoritative content. One of my clients has the four top spots on Google when you search for one of their services - two out of the four spots are case studies.
2) Testimonials
Another great way to demonstrate how happy your current clients are is to ask them if you could use a testimonial from them on your website. A testimonial is just a short quote, attributed to a specific person at the organisation, which will talk about their experience with you in a very positive way. It only needs to be a few lines long.
Bearing in mind how busy your clients are, they might not have the time to sit and write out a testimonial from scratch for you. So why not send them through some suggestions of areas in which you have worked well together, and examples which other people have said about you, to make it easier and pain-free for them to write a few lines for you.
If a new potential customer can read first-hand how other clients have found working with you, then they are 92% more likely to believe that feedback than anything else you can claim yourself so testimonials can be an incredibly valuable asset to your website – a real boost to your credibility.
Ideally, you want testimonials which cover all the different aspects of dealing with your business such as customer service, efficiency, quality, product etc. to really enhance that credibility level for new clients.
3) Client list
A really great way to gain credibility, particularly if you work in a niche industry and have some well-known brands on your books is to create a client page on your website. People looking for new suppliers will always want to know what experience you have already in their industry, so if you can name-drop some top companies you are already working with, it could make a big difference.
It’s also really simple to do. All you need is a page on your website which literally lists all of your clients and includes their logos as well. The key to success with this tool is having sufficient clients to make your list look impressive, and having logos and names which people in your industry will recognise and respect.
If you are a very small business then this may not work for you, or if you are in the type of industry where you need to guard your client list closely from competitors then clearly this technique isn’t for you. However, for most businesses it is a very simple way to boost credibility within your niche industry.
4) Online reviews
Online reviews not only boost your credibility but can also potentially help to improve Google rankings for your business. There are two easy ways to help your customers create great reviews for your business:
The first are Facebook reviews. If you create a Facebook business page there is a section built in for customers to rate your business with a star-rating and write you a review. If you want to encourage customers to do this for you, you can send them a link to this reviews section, by email, and just ask them to click through and write the review for you.
The second are Google reviews. With Google you just need to search for your business name and when your Google business listing pops up on the right-hand side of the screen you will see a button for people to submit a review of your company. If you click this button to bring up the review window, you can then copy the address (or URL) of this page and then send to customers by email to complete the review for you. Just be aware that the Google links are really long, so it’s worth using a URL shortening site first, before sending it on to your client!
Once you have reviews on Google, your business site will start to rank above similar sites which don’t feature any customer reviews, so it’s great for credibility and also for improving your business visibility on the search engine.
You can also then copy and paste the review text onto your website directly to create testimonials for the business.
Conclusion
Increasing your business credibility doesn’t have to be complicated but it really can pay dividends for attracting new clients, both from a reassurance point of view and from a search engine ranking perspective.
Whether you opt to write short case studies around your biggest clients, or ask everyone you work with to create a testimonial, it’s really important to have some kind of evidence that you have happy clients, visible on your website.
If you work with recognised brands or big names within your niche industry, then a client list page could work wonders for your business, boosting its credibility with every potential client that visits the site.
Or use your Google business listing and ask clients to write reviews for you, so that you have the double-bonus of boosting your credibility as well as your Google ranking at the same time.
Whether you choose one of these options or a combination of all of them, boosting your business credibility can only be a good thing, particularly when you consider that 92% of consumers trust testimonials above other forms of advertising.
Hopefully the points outlined will help you to make sure your business is as credible as possible to your potential customers. If you have any questions or need any help or advice, feel free to give me a call (01264 735 333) or leave me a comment below. Coming up in the next post in this series, I’ll explain why it’s critical your company’s website encourages visitors to take action.
