See new with a free download link a list of the best WordPress testimonials plugins to show to your visitors what your site users or clients have to say about your company or your services.
Getting a ton of traffic to your website doesn’t mean much if your visitors don’t do whatever it is you’d like them to. Whether your goal is to build your newsletter-subscription list, sell more products or services, etc., you have a website for a reason!
In reality, however, it can often be very difficult to convince your visitors to do any of these things — not least because we’re all still a little skeptical from time to time!
A successful website depends on establishing trust with your visitors — and social proof, like testimonials, can often help by increasing credibility and encouraging adoption and acceptance.
Top WordPress Testimonials Plugins
WordPress Testimonials plugins generally work by allowing you to add testimonials to your website in custom post types. So, give you various ways to display your testimonials as widgets, full pages, slideshows, and more. Many also offer multiple ways to display testimonials and collect them. Such as by adding a form to your website for visitors to fill in. Or even gathering them for you via social media!
There are a lot of testimonial plugins out there. In the following list, I’ll be focusing on plugins that:
- Firstly, they are popular and highly rated,
- Secondly, they are currently being updated and supported by the developer, and
- Finally, have some unique feature(s) to set them apart from the rest!
Hopefully, this list will be extremely useful in helping you find the perfect testimonial plugin. So, if, by chance, we happen to have missed your favorite plugin, let us know in the comments below!
EASY TESTIMONIALS: Best Free WordPress Testimonials Plugins
Easy Testimonials is an easy-to-use, essential plugin that still packs a lot of features. It’s also one of the most popular, with over 80,000 downloads and a rating of 4.6 stars! And I have to say. It’s my favorite on this list — I’ve been using it on several of my sites for a while now.
With Easy Testimonials, you can display your testimonials as a customized widget. Add them to any post or page with various shortcodes. You can also use the Settings menu to generate your shortcodes with custom display options.
One of the best features of this plugin is the ability to control how the testimonials display. There are over 30 different display styles you can choose from, so you can customize the look without learning CSS. There’s also a field in the settings menu to enter custom CSS if you want to fine-tune the display further.
The plugin is self-explanatory and straightforward but has extensive documentation if you get stuck. Many reviews also note that the developer is quick to help with any issues.
A Pro version also lets you collect testimonials on your website front end with a form, among other premium features.
But the free version has plenty of features already. You can:
- Display random testimonials in your sidebars, pages, or posts
- Choose from cool transition effects like slides or fadeout
- Include ratings and images with your testimonials, with Schema.org markup
- Link testimonials to a custom URL (like a product page)
…to list but four of many!
TESTIMONIALS WIDGET
Testimonials Widget is one of the most popular testimonial plugins, and when you look at all the included features, it’s easy to see why.
With this plugin, you’re not just limited to testimonials; you can also use it to display portfolio projects and reviews. Each testimonial can include videos, images, text, supports categories and tags, and reviews schema for rich snippets. Once created, the plugin lets you display each of these via shortcodes, widgets, or functions in your theme files.
…and ideal choice, then, for a designer/developer wishing to display a range of different types of client testimonials on a portfolio website, for example.
A few other great features that set this plugin apart:
- Choose from carousel, fade, or slide transitions
- Filter by a category, tag, or post ID
- Responsive slideshows
The testimonials display basic styling and minimal options to change the look, so if you want more display options, you’ll have to know at least a little CSS to customize how things get displayed.
There’s also a premium version available that includes both support from the developer and a lot more features. Note: although the free version doesn’t have direct support, it’s worth mentioning that there’s an available knowledge base that provides a certain level of community support.
BORDERLESS: Best Free WordPress Testimonials Plugins
TESTIMONIAL BASICS
Testimonial Basics is a simple and easy-to-use plugin that make it very easy to add testimonials without complicated options and configurations. There are styling options, including nine different fonts, so you can customize the look easily without having to know any CSS. Many reviews note how easy it is to configure and use — a great choice, perhaps, if you don’t want to spend much time figuring things out or messing with any code.
The testimonials support a five-star rating system and Gravatars, so you don’t have to upload any images (providing that the testimonial author has a Gravatar associated with their email address).
There are input forms included, either as shortcodes or widgets so that you can collect testimonials from customers/clients directly on your website. You can also display your testimonials with shortcodes or widgets. Furthermore, this particular plugin is also available in French, Dutch, German, and Spanish.
HMS TESTIMONIALS
HMS Testimonials is a little different because it includes absolutely zero styling out of the box. You’ll have to know CSS in order to style your testimonials.
It has some exciting features, including a drag-and-drop editor for you to create page templates to display your testimonials. You can also add custom fields to your testimonials to display whatever additional information you’d like.
This essential, flexible plugin is ideal for those who know their way around code but don’t want to create a plugin from scratch. The developer is also very involved with the user base, open to suggestions, and often incorporates new features to the plugin based on user suggestions.
(note: if you’re looking for an even more fundamental, light-weight testimonials-plugin than this one (if you’re an experienced developer for example), check out Testimonials by WooThemes)
KUDOBUZZ TESTIMONIAL WIDGET: Best Free WordPress Testimonials Plugins
KudobuzTestimonials is not as popular as the others on this list, with just over 2,000 downloads. Still, it’s highly rated and has some exciting features that set it apart from the other plugins on this list.
In addition to adding your own testimonials (or “kudos”), Kudobuzz also automatically gathers positive mentions of you on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and blogs around the web.
In order to use this plugin, you’ll have to create an account at Kudobuzz to use the plugin. Once you do, you can connect your social media accounts, and it’ll start tracking your mentions for you. This is a really great, easy way to save complimentary comments on social media. You can then use shortcodes to display your testimonials on a post or page.
This plugin seems to be very basic and doesn’t have much documentation, but the functionality is very useful. Hopefully they’ll develop it more and more as time goes on.
Do You Really Need a Plugin to Display Testimonials?
It’s true that you could easily add testimonials to your website manually. In fact, I’d recommend doing just that if you happen to have both the coding skills and only a couple of simple testimonials to display — especially if you don’t think you’ll be updating or adding to them anytime soon.
All the Visualmodo WordPress themes already give you 2 premium WordPress plugins for free that easily have more testimonials style options.
In many cases however, using a testimonials plugin will give you an excellent range of options for not only managing and displaying testimonials on your site, but also collecting them in the first place — thereby potentially saving you a lot of time and energy…
If you’re thinking of using testimonials on your website in a big way, I’d recommend trying out one or more of the above-mentioned WordPress testimonial plugins!
