Every web business should be using testimonials. Testimonials are extremely effective in making visitors take that extra step forward to buy your product because they are given confidence by looking at what other people have said. Testimonials can work everywhere on a website; on the homepage or in the sales letter. Good, believable testimonials on your website can spark a great number of extra sales. Here are 8 ways to make your online testimonials more effective.

1. When asking for testimonials, ask people whose opinions count. If a visitor on your site sees a testimonial from a well known person who is associated with the product you are trying to sell then this will have a great boost for your credibility. Just ask these well known people to review your product and give a testimonial. Do not be afraid to ask for testimonials because really you have nothing to lose.

2. Ask your customers to send in their picture when they give testimonials about your product or service. This will show viewers that the testimonials you show on your site are not fake. It gives the impression that real people have said these good words about your website.

3. Have your customers who give testimonials mail you their hand written signature. This way you can scan in the signature so that it looks like a genuine testimonial. Once again, this is another way to make your testimonials more believable so that visitors will start to trust you more; a crucial part of achieving online success.

4. Similarly, you could have customers to send in a hand written testimonial as a letter. You could scan in the whole letter for boosted credibility. However, in order to get customers to do this you could offer a discount or offer a free gift if they give a good hand written testimonial. Alternatively, you could ask for a testimonial on a post card.

5. You could have customers give a spoken testimonial. This can be done easily by the customer recording his or her testimonial with a tape recorder. An alternative and possibly easier way of doing this is to have your customer leave a voicemail or answer phone message and then upload this to your website as an audio file. Have the audio testimonial played whenever someone enters your site so that visitors always get to hear how good other customers have found your product or service.

6. When your customers give testimonials, ask them for their personal profile too. This will make testimonials more entertaining to read for your visitors and will show visitors what type of people your product and service benefits most. Also, your customers will probably be very willing to give a testimonial with a personal profile because it will allow them to include their web address. This way, you should be able to get plenty of these testimonials. 7. When you receive your email testimonials, take a screen shot of the email instead of just extracting the testimonial from the text. This way when visitors see the email, they will see the date, time and who its from field. This of course will serve as sufficient proof to show that this is a genuine testimonial from a happy customer.

8. Once you have received very positive testimonials, ask the writers of these testimonials to give their contact information so that your web visitors can contact them and enquire on the product you are selling. This is a great way to get people talking about your product positively and your visitors are more likely to believe a positive account from a previous customer than a positive account from your sales letter.

Overall, just be creative about trying to improve the effect of your testimonials. Put them where people will see them and include them on all pages of your website so that happy customers will be associated with your website. If testimonials are used effectively, many more sales will be made.