Service websites can be tricky to get right. Whereas a product, or a productized service have benefits that are easier to show, a custom service such as consulting can be much trickier.
What you are selling is a process and an end-result that will be great, depending on what the customer wants. By definition, this is to some extent unclear. So what you are essentially selling is the promise that you will do good work.
Marketing such a promise is tricky because it requires you to gain the trust of your prospect. When they talk to you in person, you often embody this in your passion. Extending this online can be trickier.
An excellent way of doing this is to properly implement references or testimonials written by previous clients. Here are a few pointers that will take the way you use references to the next level.
Show Testimonials Together With Service Information
On most websites you will see sections labeled as testimonials, where companies gather many testimonials from many different clients in one place, asking the prospect to go to this section to see what other customers think.
While this is far better than nothing, it is important to realize that testimonials can lift your service information when used contextually.
Say you have a page describing one of your services. The sole goal of this page is to convince the prospect. By cleverly implementing testimonials in the service description, as part of the copy and flow of the page they are much more convincing and effective.
Use Photos of Humans
From a psychology point of view, we know that as humans we connect straight away with faces. If possible, show a photo of the person who has written the testimonial. It will create much bigger impact as the prospect will better see that this came from an actual human being, instead of just being words on a page.
If it is strictly a company behind the message, then including their logo is the equivalent.
Keep Testimonials Genuine
There’s nothing worse than testimonials which don’t feel genuine at all. Don’t try and craft them into using jargon and being pushy and selling. The reason why testimonials are effective in the first place is that they are supposed to be the genuine words of your customers. Make sure you keep them that way!
Conclusion
Most websites miss the contextual aspect of testimonials. Thinking about the flow of your pages and using the testimonials to enhance what you are saying yourself is the key to making them successful, and making your service pages sell much better.