Testimonials Can Increase Your Web Traffic

Weve all seen and read product testimonials. Theyre a very valuable tool for merchant sales and can often tip the scales in determining a customers decision to buy. But testimonials offer another superb benefit. Its the benefit to you and your marketing strategy.

When Im on a site offering a product or service I like to click on customer testimonials because they are generally short and easy to read. People typically point out exactly what they like about a product and how they used it to their benefit. Testimonials come from real users, theyre not some ad written by the company.

Now, lets take the testimonial concept and think about it as a marketing strategy for you and your business.

Website testimonials describe how buyers feel about the products they have purchased and used. If you, as a buyer, offer your testimonial with your name and website address this now becomes a very valuable marketing tool for you. It will expose you and your business to everyone looking at that merchants website. If the merchant site happens to be a well-known site offering a high demand product, this could mean huge exposure for you.

Note that many merchant sites will display your website address but will not put an actual link to it. While its ideal to have a link to your site its not always necessary. I often investigate sites of testimonial givers whether there is a link attached or not. As long as your website address is displayed, that is good enough.

Testimonials can also double as a great linking strategy as well. If your testimonial includes your link and is displayed on the front page of four or five high ranking merchant sites this can increase your link popularity tremendously. By doing this you have also just eliminated the concern of linking to competitor sites and youve avoided the hassle of reciprocal linking.

Testimonials dont only need to be addressed to merchants you buy from. You should also send your testimonials to ezines or free online services that you use. Send them in the form of complimentary notes. Compliment their products or services and describe how you find them useful. Websites interested in boosting sales will often use them and you are much more likely to get printed if you are delivering a compliment.