Making your online testimonials believable

A testimonial is a documented proof commending the virtue of some product and serves as a strong promoter in the advertising and marketing campaign of your product, and thus establishes the credibility of your website. This endorsement is a written or spoken statement applied to the sales pitches certified by the ordinary citizens. Most inexperienced marketers have admitted that if a strong headline separates a good sales letter from the lousy one, a well-documented testimonial helps in making the deal definite. If a first-time visitor is cynical about your product that interests him/her, your testimonials just might hit the bulls eye and motivates your visitors to place an order on your website.
Do’s and Do Not’s to make your testimonial believable:

Do Not’s

1. General, non-specific, misleading testimonials never bring any good, and on the contrary belittle your long-established standing.
2. Do not under any state of affairs, try to write your own testimonials or to hire someone to write fake testimonials for you. It is not wise to dupe your visitors.
3. Do not include the testimonials from individuals who identify themselves with just names and nonspecific titles such as "businesswoman" and "professional."

Do’s

1. Include short and snappy, authentic testimonials from genuine people. This can considerably boost your conversion rate. You can simply request them to commend on the virtue of your services and products.
2. For each testimonial included, also provide the customer's particulars. If your customers represent some organization include the business name. Enhance their authority by citing their designation and including a link of their website. You can also request your customers to provide their pictures along with testimonials to lend more credibility to your web site.
3. Always ask for permission before publishing someone's comments on your website. If possible get their approval in writing. But always include the testimonials of those customers who are not finicky about providing the personal detail you intend to provide.
4. Include comments which will aptly appeal to the five senses of your potential customers. The generic ones are neutral. If they don’t harm you, they do not even yield you any benefit.
5. To increase the level of impact of your testimonials, try embedding them in the content on your main pages. It is a powerful technique to improve your sales conversions.
6. Try keeping the quotes not more than five lines because nobody has that much time to go through the long copy unless it is highly effective. But if in case including the entire testimonial is the demand of your web page try splitting it up into several segments to scatter throughout your site.
7. To lend a more official look to the testimonial include scanned signatures of your customers.
8. Convert the recorded commendation into an online audio file. Uploading it to your web site to give a feeling of intrapersonal communication.
9. Have people mail you their testimonial on a postcard. It will be a big proof that your testimonial is not fake.
10. Include scanned hand-written letter for a more realistic look.
11. Including the e-mail messages the way they come at you. It’ll be more convincing because it will show the date, time, subject, who it's from and who it's to.
12. Convert the camcorded commendation into an online video file. Uploading it to your web site to give a feeling of intrapersonal communication.