How to Add Rotating WordPress Testimonials For Free

Getting new visitors to trust you enough to spend money on your services is one of the toughest parts of running a website. Therefore, its crucial to find easy yet effective ways to prove your reliability. Fortunately, you can make strides in this area by simply adding a WordPress testimonials section to your site.Testimonials are an excellent way to encourage trust  (as long as theyre positive!), since they show potential clients that you  have a track record for doing good work. Plus, securing a  testimonial wont cost you anything.In this article, were going to talk a bit more about what online testimonials entail and why you should consider using them. Then well  show you how to add a neat feature called rotating testimonials. WordPress actually has a plugin that makes this super easy it will only take you a few steps. A glowing testimonial is one of the best ways to convince new visitors to try your services.Securing customer testimonials is a relatively straightforward task. All you need to do is ask past clients for their thoughts on your service, and make sure theyre okay  with you quoting them publicly.The idea behind using testimonials is simple – they offer you a way to market products and services to your audience for free. However, that isnt their only benefit. Lets talk about what else they can do for you:Increase trust among your customer base. Trust is essential if you want your visitors to convert into clients. After all, people dont want to listen to or buy products from someone they dont trust.Re-engage past clients. Reaching out to past customers to ask for their feedback is an elegant way to re-open communications. Even if they prefer not to be quoted publicly, you can still use the opportunity to inform them about new deals.The main reason testimonials work so well is that they provide users with external insight into your services. If you want to make yours even more useful, remember to ask your past clients if you can di splay their photograph. This can help your testimonials appear even more trustworthy.  Linking back to your clients own sites (or social media pages) is also a nice touch.Its clear that there really is no significant downside to including WordPress testimonials on your website. Therefore, lets  switch gears and talk about how to get the job done!How to add a rotating WordPress testimonials section (in three steps)If we can all agree on something, its that the more testimonials you have, the better. The problem is  that they can take up a lot of space, so it often makes sense to display them in a single section using a sliding feature so that visitors can still easily navigate your site.To do this, were going to use the Testimonials Widget plugin. Before moving on to the first step, youll need to install and activate it. Testimonials Widget Author(s): AxelerantCurrent Version: 3.5.0Last Updated: May 15, 2019testimonials-widget.3.5.0.zip 86%Ratings 1,050,988Downloads 3.9 .2Requires Step #1: Configure the Testimonials Widget pluginTestimonials Widget packs quite a few  settings for a plugin with such straightforward functionality. To access them, youll need to click on the new Testimonials tab from your WordPress dashboard:Instead of going over every single option, were going to focus on those youll find most useful. For starters, head over to the General tab and erase the contents of the Default Reviewed Item  and Default Reviewed Item URL fields. Since youre going to place your testimonials manually, that information wont be necessary.Then, move on to the Fields section and choose the elements you dont want your WordPress testimonials to include. Each box you tick here will hide a particular item:Deciding which options to keep enabled is up to you, but we recommend you retain either the author or avatar fields. After all, if people can put a face to the testimonial, theyll be more likely to trust it.Once youve made your choices, remember to sav e the changes. Then you can move on to the next step.Step #2: Create your testimonialsNow that youre ready to add your first testimonial, go to Testimonials → Add New on your dashboard. This will open up the editor and enable you to enter a title and the contents of your clients testimonial:Keep in mind that by default, Testimonials Widget doesnt display this title on the front end. With that in mind, we recommend choosing one that will help you identify each testimonial later on.After typing in or copying over your clients testimonial, scroll down to the Testimonial Data section. Here you can add identifying information about the client:Dont forget that during the first step, you may have disabled some of these fields from displaying on the front end. You can leave those sections blank, and simply fill in the rest. When youre done, remember to add a featured image for your testimonial, which will display right next to the text. Lets see how the final product looks on the fro nt end:By default, your testimonial will appear without any customizations, such as the border weve added here. If you want to tinker with your testimonials style, check out how to customize it using Cascading Stylesheets (CSS). Then you can simply repeat this process to create additional WordPress testimonials.Step #3: Place a rotating testimonials section on your websiteOnce all the testimonials you want to use are ready, youll need to add a  slider section somewhere on your site. There are two ways to do this. The first is by using the Testimonials Slider widget, available under Appearance | Widgets:This method enables you to place your slider either in  your sidebar or footer. However, if you want more control over your WordPress testimonials, youre probably better off using shortcodes. Pasting the following code into your WordPress editor will display your slider wherever you place it:[testimonials_slider show_controls=true]Lets check out how this will look on the front end of your site:By default, your testimonials slider will transition from slide to slide automatically. Adding the show_controls configuration enables your visitors to switch between slides manually  instead. If youd rather use the default settings, all you have to do is remove that section of the code from our example above.ConclusionTestimonials are a great way to drum up new business for your site. As long as you do a great job for your clients, chances are some of them will be happy to leave you a testimonial. Even a few lines of positive feedback can have an impact on new users and encourage them to convert, so you have nothing to lose by trying. Testimonials Widget plugin:Configure the plugins main settings.Create your testimonials.Add a rotating testimonials section to your site.Do you have any questions about how to use WordPress testimonials effectively? Ask away in the comments section below!