What other people have to say about a businesses’ services or products plays a big part in the decision making of potential consumers. I know when I shop for an item, I not only compare the products based on the site’s list of features, but also the customer reviews provided.
Bloggers who are selling their own products or services need a way to display customer testimonials on their sites. When building my web services site, Techno Mom Designs, I did some research to figure out the best way to show recommendations from my happy clients. I really wanted to have a space in my sidebar that would show a rotating testimonial, and I wanted it to be easy to manage. After trying several options, I found one I like, aptly named:
Testimonial Manager
This plugin is very easy to use and makes adding and removing testimonials a breeze! You can choose to show them on a page, and/or the sidebar via a widget. The widget automatically rotates the testimonials so a new one (or however many your specify) shows on each page load.
Fields for Testimonials:
- Name
- Company Name
- Website URL
- Testimonial
Avatar options include:
- Use Gravatar
- Upload Image
- No Avatar
I chose not to show avatars for mine, because not everyone I’ve worked for has a suitable image. I also wanted to reduce the amount of space used in my side bar. To see how it looks on my site, view my Testimonials page. Note the sidebar view while you’re there.
Another cool feature is the Custom CSS option! I haven’t played with it much, other than to make my links match the rest of the links on my site, but it looks pretty extensive!
Here are a few screenshots of the backend:
Do you share customer testimonials on your site? What plugin or system do you use?
When describing themselves,