Customer feedback is an essential tool for building your brand’s reputation and attracting new customers. Not only does it help website visitors determine whether or not your products and services are for them, but it also communicates that you care about your customers enough to request and act on their feedback.
Showcasing customer reviews, testimonials, and other forms of feedback is vitally important, because it shows you have legions of satisfied customers ready to support your brand. So, how can you display it to get the best possible results?
Let’s look at five practical ways you can display customer feedback on your website to increase traffic and drive sales that will take your business to the next level.
1. Use star ratings to show the quality of your services at a glance
Star ratings are the simplest form of customer feedback because they show how highly your users rate your services with a simple star rating system. Most commonly using up to five stars, they allow customers to rate your offerings by assigning a specific number of stars to them. Usually, 1 represents extreme dissatisfaction, while 5 stars mean they are extremely satisfied.
This form of social proof offers a great way to let people see the benefits that your products or services offer as quickly as possible. They also improve the customer experience by making it more straightforward for your customers to compare the different options they are considering on your company website.
To display star ratings on your website effectively, place them directly below your product listings or at the top of your service pages to grab people’s attention. Also, ensure customers can sort your products based on their star ratings to ensure they can quickly find your most-loved products or services.
Let’s look at some companies that use star ratings to effectively display customer feedback and help visitors find what’s right for them.
TruthFinder is a public records search tool that helps customers find background information on a person of their choice. To build credibility with their audience, they display their star ratings on their homepage.
Notice how they boast that they’ve received more than 60,000 five-star reviews to prove that their tool is valuable and users can trust their brand. This is a great way to communicate that many people have tried and loved their services, which can help potential customers trust the brand as they research the products and services offered by TruthFinder.
You can use this strategy on your website by outlining how many five-star reviews your business, products, or services have received to prove how well received your offerings are to drive more sales.
Another company that uses star reviews to enhance its customers’ experience is Lucky Bobbleheads, which offers custom bobbleheads for any occasion.
Since their items are customized, and viewers cannot preview the finished product, they display star ratings beneath their product listings. Using this simple star rating system and placing the relevant reviews next to their products can help potential customers identify which bobbleheads are going to be a good match for their needs. This information also helps customers quickly see which bobbleheads are bestsellers and choose the products that previous customers were the happiest with. It’s a great way to help viewers make an informed buying decision.
You can use this strategy on your website by displaying the related star ratings below your product listings to provide valuable information for your customers as they look to purchase your products or services.
2. Create video testimonials out of interviews with your clients
Video testimonials can make great alternatives to written reviews because they allow potential customers to hear about the value of your products or services directly from your past customers. Video reviews also help put a face to each testimonial to build an emotional connection with potential customers, which is far more difficult to do with static reviews or testimonials.
Video testimonials show customers are happy to put their faces and names to their reviews. And, they are incredibly effective because they add a layer of credibility to your customers’ opinions.
Consider interviewing your clients to create engaging video testimonials. To ensure your customers provide effective video testimonials, you should:
• Ask for solid facts and figures concerning how you helped them throughout the buying process and how your products or services improved their lives.
• Tell them to mention the pain points they experienced before trying your solutions to help new customers understand the value that you deliver.
• Ask them to discuss the specific features of your products or services they found especially helpful so potential customers know exactly what to expect from you.
Video testimonials not only prove that your products and services have been well-received, but they help attract new leads that will boost your sales numbers. Let’s look at a company that uses video testimonials to engage its target audience and build trust with potential buyers.
Pherrus Financial is an Australian accountancy firm specializing in tax that aims to help their clients make the most of their finances.
Since they need to prove to potential clients that they can be trusted with their sensitive financial data, they offer video testimonials from previous clients who have enjoyed and benefited from their services. These testimonials discuss the professionalism that Pherrus Financial offers and the enjoyable experience these customers had while working with the tax accountants. The video testimonials do a great job of explaining the benefits customers receive from the services and show real people praising the company, which goes a long way to building their reputation with potential customers and driving more sales.
You can also use long-form video testimonials like this to create an emotional connection with your audience and show potential customers the benefits that you offer.
3. Don’t be afraid to highlight negative feedback — show how you’ve grown from it
Feedback is important to your business, but no company is perfect and you will likely receive negative feedback at one time or another.
But don’t worry — you can display negative feedback on your website and explain how you took this critique to heart and made the necessary changes to improve your products or services. For example, you could write a blog post about how you’ve updated a key business process to improve your customer experience based on negative feedback that you received. You could even highlight negative feedback directly on your product or services pages to give your brand a chance to show how you’ve come up with a new iteration people will love.
When you receive negative feedback make sure your customer service team reaches out to reviewers, apologizes for any inconvenience, and asks how you can rectify the situation. This will show that you care about your customers’ experiences and give you insights that can improve your brand and even make those customers with negative feedback change their hearts and give your brand another try in the future.
4. Use written testimonials to improve the keyword density of your web pages
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of enhancing your website to help it rank higher on relevant search engine results pages, or SERPs. It’s a great way to reach the right people because, if your content appears at the top of the search results, customers will be more likely to click on it.
To get the most out of your SEO strategy, you’ll need to target the right keywords on each page of your website. You can do this by using a tool like the Ahrefs Keywords Explorer to understand what people type into Google when they’re looking for products or services like yours. Then, you’ll want to work on incorporating these keywords into your copy and getting the keyword density of each page right.
The ideal keyword density, according to experts, is about 1-2% — this is how much of your content should be made up of the keywords you’re trying to target. And, if you’re able to pick out and display customer reviews that also include these keywords, this is a simple but very effective way to get your keyword density up.
Now, for inspiration, let’s look at a company that does a great job of improving the keyword density of its web pages with written customer testimonials.
Excel Builders is a custom home construction company that serves the Delaware and Maryland area. They have chosen to display reviews on their ICF home builders page, and these include phrases like “home building,” “build a home,” and “new ICF home” to help them rank for these competitive keywords in a natural way.
These are all keywords people might type into Google when they’re seriously thinking about hiring home builders to create their dream house. So, it makes a lot of sense to target them on this service page. This is a great way to support their SEO strategy and get their site in front of the right people, as it ensures the company’s service page has a good keyword density while also providing valuable information to readers to help drive sales.
You can use this strategy on your website by choosing and displaying customer reviews that help improve the keyword density of your web pages. It’s also a good idea to display different reviews that target different keywords on each page of your website to boost your SEO strategy and make your customer feedback work overtime for your business.
5. Choose strategic spots on your website for the best results
The placement of your customer reviews can greatly impact how effective they are. So, you must put plenty of thought into which pages you add them to and where they should be placed to get the best results possible.
When designing a website, you must consider where you want your customer reviews to go. So, think about where the right people are bound to see them like:
• In the sidebars of your product pages to support your sales process while not distracting from the content on your page.
• Inside a scrolling carousel on your service pages to provide as much information as possible in a condensed area.
• In the footer near your contact information to capture the attention of your readers as they finish scanning your pages.
Now, let’s look at a company that uses the strategic placement of its customer reviews to help move website visitors through its sales funnel.
Goli Nutrition is a company that provides innovative health products, like their apple cider vinegar gummies, that support a healthy lifestyle. They display their stellar customer reviews right after their product listings on their homepage. So, when customers are finished scrolling through their offerings, they will see the words of happy customers, which can help encourage potential buyers to make a purchase from them instead of looking at a competitor’s products.
You can use this strategy on your website by displaying your amazing customer reviews in locations on your site that your ideal customers won’t miss, like the footer and header of your web pages. This can help customers see the value of your products and services and drive them to finalize a purchase with you.
Summary
Customer feedback is essential for winning over new customers and building the credibility of your brand. To ensure they work for you, you must display them in the right places and the right way on your website.
Take the time to place customer reviews on your homepage, product and service pages, and near vital information and CTAs so they can’t be missed. You’ll see an increase in sales as more and more visitors see how well-received your brand is.
Looking for more articles that can help you grow your eCommerce website? Check out the AZ Big Media business blog for ways to take your brand to the next level.
Author: Adam Steele has been writing about digital marketing and SEO for 11 years. He’s consulted for businesses small and large, including several of the largest companies in the world. If you liked this post, follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn for more like it.
