41 Best Ways To Add Social Proof on Websites

Wondering how to make your startup landing page stand out? Some landing page examples may help. By adding testimonials, reviews, and case studies, you can build credibility and increase conversions. This article will provide practical insights on incorporating social proof into your website and understand the types you can use.

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Social Proof On Website

Social proof is a psychological phenomenon that describes people's tendency to conform to others' actions and opinions when making decisions, especially when they are uncertain about the "right" choice. In other words, social proof is the idea that we rely on the crowd's wisdom to help us determine what we should do or behave in a given situation.

Social proof can take many forms, such as:

Customer reviews
Ratings
Testimonials
Social media likes and shares
Celebrity endorsements
Behavior of people around us

Any indication that others have found a particular product, service, or experience worthwhile can be considered social proof.

The power of social proof lies in its ability to reduce the perceived risk of a decision. We feel more confident when we see that others have had positive experiences. It also helps us feel like we belong to a group or community of like-minded people, which can be a powerful motivator for action.

In the context of website engagement, social proof can be an incredibly effective tool for increasing conversions and engagement, as it provides visitors with the confidence they need to take action on your site.

Social Proof On Website

Social proof plays a huge role in a buyer's decision. According to Trustpluse, 88% of people trust reviews over advertising. When someone is mulling over a purchase or trying to decide between two different brands, they’ll often turn to other people with experience with the products for guidance.

And shoppers aren’t picky about whose advice they’ll take. It can be anyone from:

Family
Friends
Idols
Celebrities

Social proof affects us in many ways. Even beyond buying decisions, we look to other people to show us how to pay in restaurants while abroad, what to do in emergencies, or how to eat “Toad in the hole” in England, to name a few things.

Because it’s such a big part of daily life, if your business doesn’t have social proof, shoppers on your site might even feel alienated. Including social proof in your marketing is great for your business.

Social proof has also been shown to increase customer trust and confidence and build credibility for your brand. Including social proof on your website helps potential customers feel more secure about their purchase decisions.

High-quality and convincing reviews
Positive testimonials
Engaging in social media shares

This trust is crucial to driving sales.

Social proof also fosters customer engagement by creating a sense of community. It shows potential customers that others have tried your products or services and have had positive experiences. This can create a sense of belonging and increase the likelihood of new customers engaging with your brand.

Social proof is a great way to increase website conversions. Displaying positive customer experiences and feedback can help convince potential customers to purchase. It’s much more persuasive for a potential customer to see other customers' experiences than to hear directly from a salesperson or to see a marketing message.

Social proof is not only a great marketing strategy, but it is also an easy and effective way to improve your website and increase your conversion rates. Adding social proof to your website can give your business the boost it needs to excel.

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Social Proof On Website

To get the most out of social proof on your website, you must ensure it is easily visible and accessible. After all, what good is a glowing testimonial or an impressive set of numbers if no one sees them?

Think about where you put your social proof. Keep it near the supporting claim or in the most visible places on your site. Here are some suggestions for where to add social proof:

If you're selling something, add social proof to the cart. People want to know they're making the right decision, and if they see that others have bought the same items, they'll feel more confident.

You can also include social proof to reinforce your writing. It's like saying, "I know what I'm talking about." That only strengthens your point.

The more subscribers you have, the more social proof you have. It's hard to refuse something that everyone else is doing, right?

Case Studies

Case studies are one of your most potent forms of social proof. They're not just numbers on a screen but testimonials in story form.

Add social proof to your sidebar. People will see it, especially if it's high on your site.

Your Home Page

Think of your home page as the front door to your site. You want to show off your social proof right when people arrive.

Your Landing Page

Landing pages are great places to put social proof. You're asking people to do something, so it helps to show that others have done it (and are happy with it!).

Remember, no one else can if you can't see your social proof. So make it easy to find.

Social Proof On Website

1. Reviews and Customer Testimonials

Online reviews and customer testimonials are the most obvious and probably sought-after social proof. People rely on them for an honest and realistic impression of your product/service that they often feel they can’t get from your words.

Versatile Testimonial Placement Strategies

If you sell real estate agent software, there’s only so much you can do via your website to convince new customers to buy. Selling houses depends heavily on each particular case and customer, so having a review collection strategy for people who have used your software in the field is vital to assure prospective buyers that your stuff will be helpful.

There are many ways to use testimonials in your content. Some brands create dedicated landing pages for them, while others pepper them throughout their site.

2. Case studies

When buyers are at the ‘research’ phase of their buying journey, customers want to know exactly how your product will improve their lives. Customer success stories help with this. A good case study acts like an extended customer review over which you have some control. Contact your best customers and ask if they’d mind answering a few questions for a case study. Chances are, they’ll be delighted to help you and get the extra exposure your case study will provide.

Maximizing the Impact of Case Studies

You can then utilize these case studies throughout your website. A dedicated page or area on your site will satisfy those individuals who search specifically for this kind of social evidence. But you don’t have to limit the impact of case studies to those prospects.

3. Show Live Sales Notifications

Live sales notifications are another excellent way to show visitors that other people are interested in your product or service. In many cases, these notifications appear as small pop-ups in the bottom corner of the screen.

When consumers browse your products, check out your blog, or even visit the payment page, they can see how others interact with your site. If someone is on the fence about placing an order but suddenly sees three notifications that shoppers recently checked out, this could encourage them to take action.

4. Video Testimonials

Like written testimonials, video testimonials are a great example of social proof for your digital marketing strategy. These convert better than written testimonials because the visual aspect adds more credibility. One study shows that social proofing your site with video testimonials convinces 77% of users to purchase.

5. Audio Testimonials

These are less used than written or visual testimonials and are more likely to be found in radio advertisements and podcasts. The type of testimonial you choose will likely depend on where your audience consumes your content. If your podcast is posted on your website, you can add audio testimonials before, during, or after each episode.

6. Quick quotes

You’ve likely seen this social poof website example before. Quotes are the perfect way to boost credibility with your site’s visitors quickly—the more well-known the reference, the better. But even adding a small photo can make quotes a powerful social proof example.

7. Displays of Past Clients

On the homepage of most websites, you’ll likely see a section that displays the company’s previous clients. This lets you borrow social proof from other company brands. When done ethically (meaning they’re your former clients), this can be a compelling example of social proof.

8. High-Profile Guest Posts

You likely know about guest posts for content marketing purposes. They help you get more site traffic from other sources and, usually, help build backlinks. That said, they’re also a great example of social proof. If your guest poster is well-known, it speaks volumes about your brand’s authority within your niche. Any time you get a guest post, even a short one, from a famous persona in your niche, it can build trust with your audience.

9. Recent Publications

On the flip side, where have you or your brand guest posted recently? One of the strongest forms of social proof is showing that you’ve written articles or posts for other popular publications. If you can get your articles accepted by big-name online publishers like Inc. or Forbes, you’re sitting on an excellent form of social proof.

10. Expert approval

This is like a high-end quote from an expert in your niche. If you can get someone well-known in your business to speak positively about your brand, product, or service, that’s one of the best examples of social proof you can put on your website. Again, the key here is that the person providing the quote needs to be an expert within your niche.

11. Influencer Endorsement

Like expert approval, an influencer endorsement can boost your sales and conversions. Still, the difference is that the person giving the endorsement doesn’t need to be an expert; they just need to be popular.

An excellent example is when the podcaster Joe Rogan off-handedly endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. Joe Rogan is not a political expert, but his casual celebrity endorsement caused news headlines and controversy. And that is because he has a huge audience who trusts his opinion, even knowing he’s not an expert in that field.

12. User Metrics

This is your website’s perfect social proof example. You can display how many users your product or service has helped. This works best if you’re well-established and have many people using your services.

13. Best-Selling Products

You can display your best-selling or top-rated products to boost sales and increase social proof. When website visitors see that other people are enjoying certain items, they’ll be more comfortable making a purchase themselves. You can also display top-rated products, sale products, and more.

14. On-Site Reviews

Many websites will have forms that let people leave them direct feedback or reviews. This can be through a form on a web page or, often, in a live chat. Either way, you can take screenshots from these positive reviews and post them on your website.

15. Blog Post Comments

Have you ever been the first one to arrive at a party? It’s usually a bit uncomfortable until other people arrive. The same is true for blog post comments. The more people you can get to interact with your content, the more people will feel comfortable leaving comments, too. Once you get that flywheel started with some social proof, you can consistently bring in more blog post comments.

16. Number of Email Subscribers

If you’re trying to grow your email list and already have many subscribers, why not tell people about it? Showing how many people receive your emails makes the content appear more valuable, resulting in more sign-ups.

17. Number of Unsubscribers

Rather than showing the number of subscribers on your list, you may want to add the number of unsubscribers (if it’s relatively low). This is an excellent way to show that you have an extensive email list and that people love consuming the content you produce.

18. Third-Party Review Sites

We already discussed using third-party site review notifications as a social proof example. You can also take screenshots or quotes from these review sites and post them directly on your homepage. Having a neutral logo from a 3rd party site can create trust with your audience.

19. Group Activity Notification

Unlike individual activity notifications, group activity messages show when large groups take the same action on your site. This is an excellent example of social proof that you can use for popular promotions, email subscriptions, webinar sign-ups, and more. They’re super effective because they display how famous your brand, product, or event truly is.

20. Recent Sales Notifications

This type of message lets users know when someone has purchased from your site. This is a great social proof example for eCommerce stores.

21. Low-stock notifications

Do you have a popular item starting to run out of inventory? If so, let your audience know about it with a low-stock notification. This ensures your potential customers don’t miss out on their desired items.

22 New Email Subscriber Notifications

These types of messages are an excellent strategy for growing your email list. As your audience sees your monthly newsletters’ popularity, they’ll be more inclined to join.

23. Webinar Registration Notifications

Webinars are undoubtedly one of the best ways to drive more sales for your company. That said, getting new attendees can take time and effort. That’s where webinar registration notifications come in handy. These messages let your online audience know they won’t be the only attendees joining your online presentation. As a result, you get loads of new registrations.

24. 3rd Party Review Notifications

Only some interactions with your brand take place on your actual website. Sometimes, you get reviews from sites like Google My Business and Yelp. In that case, why not redirect your site’s visitors to see those stunning reviews? These social proof notifications can drastically increase your credibility, especially since the glowing reviews come from a neutral 3rd party site.

25. Survey Response Notifications

Getting people to respond to your surveys can be challenging, like getting new webinar registrations or email subscribers. That’s why you can make a survey response notification for any survey forms on your website. This will inspire others to fill out your survey form, which means more user-generated data for you.

26. Online Contest Shares

Though online contests aren’t technically a social media platform, they’re usually widely spread via sites like:

Facebook
Instagram
Twitter, and so on

This social proof persuasion example is excellent for increasing your brand's exposure, building your list, and gaining a more prominent social media following, which drives more sales.

If you write a social media post that begins getting a lot of shares, you’re bound to capture more of your audience’s attention. That’s because your audience can use this as a metric to indicate that the content is worth viewing. Plus, once you get a few extra shares on your post, you’ll likely get even more as the post gains exposure.

Growing your social media presence can be challenging. But like the old saying, “It takes money to make money,” it also takes followers to get more followers. That’s because your follower count indicates social proof that can motivate people to join your online community.

Similar to the last two social proof examples, having a post with tons of “likes” can go a long way in reaching more people online. When people see a post, they may quickly glance at the content. But if they see it’s been liked by hundreds of people, they’ll likely go back and read the post in more depth.

Twitter and Facebook have become two great resources for creating social proof persuasion. If someone speaks positively about your brand online, you can collect these testimonials from social media and display them on your website.

This form of social proof is a mix of the last few examples we looked at: how are people engaging with your brand? When people check out your social profiles, they likely won’t be influenced by just one of the social proof examples we’ve covered. Instead, they’ll consider everything, such as:

Your follower count
Popularity of your posts (from likes and shares)
Number of people discussing your brand online

If you can boost your social media engagement, you’re looking at a massively influential social proof example that can bring you new leads and drive more sales.

Response time matters! About 40% of social media users want you to respond within one hour. Users who find your response time quicker than the rest will interact with your brand first.

Rightly so, Facebook allows you to state how responsive you are on Messenger. Similarly, if you provide customer support on Twitter, you can display when you’re most responsive. It encourages people to message you, knowing they’ll quickly get your response.

You can get verified on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and receive a blue checkmark on your bio.

A blue checkmark is also an example of social proof. The blue tick is awarded to top celebrities and brands who develop authority and are deemed famous, influential, or interesting by the social media platform.

In addition to gaining credibility and respect from the community, you would also gain access to new features reserved only for verified accounts or Pages.

If you wish to get the checkmark on Twitter, here’s a guide to getting verified.

You could invite experts as guests for your social media events and webinars, such as:

Twitter chats
Facebook Live video discussions

Expert Leverage

Such collaborations allow you to tap into the experts’ positive influence and let your social media audiences hear and learn from industry experts.

35. YouTube Subscribers

YouTube is much more than just a video-sharing platform. It’s a way for you to share your knowledge and drum up new business for your online store. Like social media platforms, your subscriber count will go a long way toward getting people to trust your brand.

Like all the other examples of social proof we discussed today, getting started can be tricky. But with each new subscriber you obtain, it becomes easier to get the next one.

36. YouTube Video Likes

Like your social media posts, getting likes on your YouTube video is crucial. This example of social proof doesn’t just indicate that people watched your videos; it’s proof that they liked them.

37. YouTube Video Comments

Another example of social proof on YouTube is the number of comments your video can generate. Remember that your brand aims to connect with and engage your audience.

Comments under your video show a higher engagement rate and, as a result, inspire other people to leave comments, too. Once people leave a comment underneath your post, you can nurture that lead into a new customer.

38. Podcast Subscribers

Podcasts don’t get much attention when it comes to social proof examples. Though they probably should. That’s because podcasts have quickly become one of the most popular forms of content.

People may look for how many subscribers your podcast has. Like with YouTube, the more you have, the easier it is to get more!

39. Podcast Downloads

Another metric for social proof on podcasts is how many downloads you’ve acquired. You may not have a ton of subscribers, but specific episodes may have high download rates. You can display this to get more subscribers to your podcast and more exposure to your brand.

40. Press Mentions

This is another way to leverage the Halo Effect. If your brand has been featured in (or even mentioned by) a media source, its logo can be added to your site, usually on the homepage.

41. Data and Statistics

Although technically not social proof, data is a powerful form of evidence. Website templates have made this feature more popular in recent years. Not all numbers are social proof because they aren’t connected to human behavior, but they’re still powerful forms of credibility and differentiation.

But when the numbers are related to the work you do or the results of the work you do, it becomes social proof:

Years in business
The combined experience of the team
The size of the team
Number of happy customers or projects
Return on investment (% increased, dollars earned, hours saved)

Visual Representation

You can better represent your data and stats with charts or circles. For instance, the animated circular progress bar in the Magic UI library can be neatly used to describe your data and stats on your website, grabbing visitors' attention with its visual appeal.

Social Proof On Website

1. Amazon: Using Customer Reviews and Recommendations

Amazon is a prime example of how social proof can boost conversions and engagement on an e-commerce website. The customer review system on Amazon allows shoppers to read about the experiences of others who have purchased the same product, providing valuable insights before making their purchase.

Amazon prominently displays bestseller lists customer ratings, and customers who bought this also bought recommendations, which all contribute to creating a sense of social validation and nudging potential customers towards making a purchase.

2. Airbnb: User-Generated Reviews and Rating

Airbnb is another website that effectively leverages social proof. The platform employs a user-generated reviews and ratings system that establishes trust among users.

By showcasing tangible proof of the quality of accommodations and hosts through previous guests' experiences, Airbnb instills a sense of security and confidence in potential guests, ultimately encouraging them to book a stay.

3. Yelp: Business Reviews and Ratings

Yelp is a platform that revolves around social proof, streamlining the decision-making process for users. The number of reviews and the average star rating prominently displayed on each business's profile page give users a quick and convenient way to assess a business's quality. This transparency enables users to make informed decisions quickly, making Yelp a go-to platform for many seeking recommendations.

LinkedIn employs various forms of social proof, such as showcasing a user's number of followers, connections, endorsements, and recommendations from peers within their network. This practice helps in establishing credibility and building trust among users.

By allowing others to vouch for a user's skills and experience, LinkedIn helps paint a comprehensive picture of a user's professional background and competencies.

Social Proof On Website

Overloading with Testimonials

While testimonials can significantly enhance credibility, overloading your website with them can have the opposite effect. Here are some risks associated with cluttering pages with too much information:

Information Overload

When visitors face overwhelming testimonials, they may need help to discern which ones are most relevant or impactful. This can lead to decision fatigue, causing potential customers to leave your site without taking action.

Dilution of Impact

Too many testimonials can dilute the strength of the individual messages. Instead of emphasizing a few powerful endorsements, a long list may cause visitors to skim rather than engage deeply with the content.

Visual Clutter

An excessive number of testimonials can create a visually chaotic experience, detracting from your website’s overall design and usability. A cluttered layout can frustrate users and make navigation difficult, leading to higher bounce rates.

Best Practices

Selectivity

Choose a handful of the most compelling testimonials highlighting different aspects of your product or service. Aim for quality over quantity.

Highlight Key Quotes

Use standout quotes from testimonials in prominent areas, such as hero sections or call-to-action buttons, to draw attention without overwhelming users.

Rotating Carousel

Consider using a rotating carousel or slider to display testimonials. This allows you to showcase multiple endorsements without cluttering the page. A perfect component will be the Marquee component from the Magic UI library.

This component allows you to display your testimonials horizontally, vertically, or in 3D without cluttering your landing page or website.

Using Fake Reviews

The temptation to fabricate reviews can be vital, especially in a competitive market. Using fake reviews can have severe consequences for your brand’s reputation. If customers discover that your reviews are fake, they can significantly lose trust.

Risks & Consequences

Consumers are increasingly savvy and can often spot inauthentic endorsements. Once trust is broken, it can be challenging to rebuild.

Also, in many jurisdictions, false advertising and deceptive marketing practices can lead to legal consequences. Companies may face fines or other penalties for misleading consumers.

Best Practices

Encourage Authentic Feedback

Actively solicit genuine reviews from customers after their purchase. Consider follow-up emails or feedback forms to gather authentic testimonials.

Transparency

If you receive negative feedback, address it openly. This shows potential customers that you value honesty and are committed to improving your product or service.

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41 Best Ways To Add Social Proof on Websites

What Is Social Proof?

The Power of Social Proof

Social Proof and Website Engagement

Why Is Adding Social Proof to Websites Important?

Social Proof in Everyday Life

The Importance of Social Proof for Business

Building Trust With Social Proof

Social Proof Builds Community

Social Proof Drives Conversions

Leveraging Social Proof for Business Success

MagicUI: A Design Engineer's Dream Tool

Features of Our Component Collection

Why Choose MagicUI

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Your Sidebar

Your Home Page

Your Landing Page

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