What’s happening...

Congratulations to the Town of Amherstburg for the ‘seal of approval’ placed on their website by council, the Mayor and independent advocacy groups for having an accessible website.

Ducharme Fox Lawyers recently launched their new website! They kicked off the launch with a call out to the community to help the Society of St.Vincent de Paul with restocking their shelves after a recent fire caused extensive damage at one of their warehouses. Find out how you can help, and check out the new look and functionality by visiting the new Ducharme Fox website today.

Coco Homes also recently launched their new website. The site has a content management system to allow Coco Group administrators to easily manage information. The Coco Group plans on launching new websites for 4 of their other divisions in the coming months. Go to www.cocohome.com to see the new site design.

What do you think?

If your website helps you sell a product or service, customer testimonials are something you should consider. According to ‘Science and Practice’ by author Robert Cialdini, testimonials provide social proof, and people determine what is correct by finding out what other people think is correct.¹

The popularity of customer reviews and ratings for products sold online is evidence that the opinion of fellow shoppers, matters. But whether you are selling online or not, having customer testimonials is important when encouraging site visitors to take action.

Here are a few tips to successfully use testimonials on your website:

• Use real people, and if they let you - use their pictures as well.
• Use customer testimonials from people that fit your target market.
• Don’t put all your testimonials in one spot. By using them all over your website, more visitors will read them. Try using your best ones, right on the home page. And if you’re selling a product online, use them on the product detail pages.

_{1. Cialdini, Robert B., Influence: science and practice (Boston : Pearson Education, c2009).}

Lesson Learned!

Testimonials are a great way to give your potential customers that extra encouragement to take action on your site. Use them well to build credibility and trust in your product or service.