I've done a lot of website and branding reviews for photographers and 99% of the time they are not using testimonials to their maximum potential. Either they have really long reviews that ramble on for ages with thank yous and other meaningless sentiments that no one's going to bother to read, or there are none at all. I mean, would you book an airbnb with no reviews? Probably not, and that's only £40. When someone is spending thousands of pounds, they're going to want to know they're making the right decision. That's where your reviews come in!

Testimonials are one of the most powerful tools at your disposal - they convince your potential clients that you are what you say you are (friendly, easy to work with, good at making them feel relaxed etc) and shows that real actual people think you’re great, so there’s a good chance they will too.

Most photographers have a dedicated testimonials page, but neglect to use the reviews to their best potential. Here’s how to make the most of your testimonials and use them to get the bookings.

1. Pick the best line or two from each testimonial.

2. Tidy up the sentence so it makes sense.

3. Choose a sentence that says something you want your ideal client to know - like in the image example above.

4. Add the couple’s name.

5. Don’t add a date - it will soon look out of date.

6. Potentially overlay it over an image so give it more power and voice.

7. Put these on your info, pricing and contact pages (basically the biggest decision-making areas of your website).

How to tidy up the sentences

Take out any thank yous, we’d book you agains, and anything else that doesn’t actually tell us anything solid. Remove anything meaningless and keep stories and examples.

Once you’ve picked the good bits, it might not sound right, so feel free to take some creative license to tidy it up. For example, you could cut down this long testimonial from:

“From start to finish Emily has been fantastic to work with, she listened to exactly what we wanted from our wedding photographer and delivered far more. The pictures are beautiful, and capture the whole of our day so wonderfully. Having Emily at your wedding is like having an extra pair of (sober!) eyes, she seemed to be everywhere the action was – risking life and limb to get some ceilidh action shots! We wanted to spend time with our guests, not hours posing away from them, and we were able to do this and get some beautiful couple shots.”

You could say:

“The pictures capture our day so wonderfully. Emily seemed to be everywhere – even risking life and limb to get ceilidh action shots!”

Remember, people scroll fast through your site - make it short and bold enough that they'll see it without reading it!

How to get testimonials

After the wedding or shoot, ideally once you’ve delivered some photos, whether that’s a sneak peek or the full set, email your client and tell them how much you loved working with them and that you’d love to work with more people just like them. Tell them that in order to do that, you’d really love it if they could write you a review - then ask them these questions, taken from Jenika at Psychology for Photographers:

“What was your biggest fear before hiring me?  Did it come true, and if not, what happened instead?”

“What, specifically, was your favourite part of _____, and why?”

“If you were to recommend us to your best friend, what would you say?”

If you're eager to get a killer testimonial on your homepage right now, you could even use a lovely comment a client made in an email when you sent them their photos!

Now get those testimonials in and start booking more clients!

If you'd like a website review, you can book it here. I will cover your whole site and let you know exactly what you can do to make it totally kick ass, get you attracting more ideal clients and make it so your viewers stick around longer – and actually get in touch.