Displaying all testimonials on the site
Posted on 17. May, 2010 by Martin in Recent Changes
Whilst vouchforthis is essentially a tool for building a portfolio of testimonials to display on your own web pages and blogs, we think it is important for members and visitors alike to see that other testimonials are being added to see what sort of testimonials are being created.
So we have added a new page… Latest Member Testimonials to display in reverse chronological order the latest active testimonials.
Hopefully, this will attract a little more search traffic to the site as well as showing visitors that the site is active. We’ll update it over the next few days to include upload dates, and hope to extend it further over the next couple of months so that it becomes a full-blown, searchable directory of testimonials helping visitors to search for companies (YOU) that can demonstrate verified testimonials for products and services that they are looking for.
Ultimately, we believe that this will greatly increase the value of vouchforthis to your business.
Automatic credit from your widgets
Posted on 10. Apr, 2010 by Martin in Recent Changes
Following a suggestion from one of our new members we have changed the ‘more about’ link at the foot of each of your website widgets so that it includes your referrer id.
What this means is that you will now be automatically credited with sending new members to us if any of your website visitors click the ‘more’ link at the foot of the website testimonial widget.
This doesn’t stop you from also including your referrer id in other links from your web pages or in emails to your contacts – but you will need to do that yourself 
Find out how to earn referral income by recommending your friends to vouchforthis
Even more credibility from Vouchforthis
Posted on 07. Apr, 2010 by Martin in Recent Changes
A few weeks ago I was trying to persuade a community of website users that getting their website testimonials verified was a good idea (and that they should join vouchforthis to do so!). One of the group raised the point that an unscrupulous website owner could copy the style of a vouchforthis website widget and place it onto his own website, thereby making it look like his testimonials had been vouched-for when in fact they weren’t.
So in order to make it just a little harder to ‘forge’ a vouchforthis widget we have changed the link at the foot of each widget so that instead of giving a link just to the vouchforthis home page we now link to a vouchforthis page which verifies that the person using the widget is actually a vouchforthis member. It even names the member in case the forger tries using a link belonging to somebody else. If a link does happen to point to an invalid member then we are sent an email alering us to this fact so that we can investigate and ask the offending website owner to take the widget down.
Passing products off as authentic when they are not is a problem affecting all walks of business life, from handbags to music to software. At the end of the day we are delighted when website owners try to mimic our widgets, as it shows that they have appreciated the value of our system of verifying testimonials. What they should also be appreciating is that at just £9.99 per year it is far better to own the real thing.
A new order for your testimonials
Posted on 19. Mar, 2010 by Martin in Recent Changes
We have changed the order in which testimonials are displayed in your widgets. Previously, testimonials were displayed in the order they were uploaded. This means that your newest testimonials appeared at the bottom when displayed on your website. Ideally, we would have wanted to allow you to determine the order in which they are listed, as you might prefer to show one particular testimonial at the top of the list. However, this is too big a change for us to consider right now and so what we have done is to change the system so that when widgets are added or rebuilt (e.g. when a new testimonial is added or when you change the size or colour of your widgets) your testimonials will be listed in reverse chronological sequence. This should have a positive effect on your testimonial display as the most recent testimonials are probably the most significant for your potential new customers.
We think that this is the best default for testimonials displayed on your website, with the newest testimonials being displayed in a more visible part of the browser window.
Please note : you will need to rebuild your widgets manually if you want this to take effect on your websites straight away. To do this, simply go to your My Widgets page and click Edit , Preview and Save against each of your widgets in turn. This will fool the system into thinking you have changed your widget and so it will rebuild them, changing the order of your testimonials as it does so.
Let your website visitors add a testimonial for you
Posted on 24. Feb, 2010 by Martin in Recent Changes
So far, you have been able to use vouchforthis to add and verify testimonials that have already been given to you, and also to prompt your customers to add a testimonial for you. It’s up to you to manage this, and whilst I’m sure most members are pro-active in asking for testimonials where they think they have done a good job, there are lots of situations where this might not be practical. So we have added yet another feature to the website to enable you to passively ask for testimonials from people who visit your website, blog or social media profiles.
You can find out all about the new feature here, but in a nutshell :
- We provide you with a choice of graphics
- You paste the graphic into your web pages
- Your website visitors can then click on the graphic and be brought directly to Vouchforthis where they can leave a testimonial for you
- The testimonial will be automatically verified, and all you need to do is log in to your vouchforthis account and activate the testimonial if you are happy with it
Why not try it out by clicking one of the sample graphics on the right of this post?
A simple, and we hope, effective tool to help you get more testimonials. As well as receiving testimonials from “casual” browsers of your website for whom you may have previously worked, you can also point your existing customers to your website page and ask them to click the link if they would like to leave you a testimonial. This greatly reduces your own involvement – and you end up with a testimonial that is already “vouched-for”.
Don’t see a graphic that you like? Want something a little more customised for your website? Why not ask us to build one for you?
Rewarding you for spreading the word
Posted on 04. Feb, 2010 by Martin in General, Recent Changes
We have decided to create a referral scheme to help build our client database. All members of Vouchforthis can participate, and a generous referral commission of £5 is payable for each new paying member that you introduce.
As awareness of the vouchforthis website increases so should the credibility of the testimonials we display – and that means yours too! So please help us to spread the word (and earn some valuable commission in the process) by encouraging your contacts to join by passing your referral code on to them verbally or through emails. Increase your earning ability even further by displaying our adverts on your website.
We think this is a great way of spreading the word about our product, and we hope that as many of you as possible embrace this opportunity to introduce your contacts / friends / colleagues to vouchforthis.
To find out more about the scheme, please visit our Referrer Information page.
Validating the email addresses you enter
Posted on 29. Jan, 2010 by Martin in Recent Changes
We have changed the Registration and the Add a Testimonial pages to tighten up the validation of email addresses. Previously there was some loose validation, but it was easy to get an email address slightly incorrect, when adding a testimonial for example, and then find that the testimonial never reached its intended recipient.
To improve things we have added some email address validation code that not only validates the format of the email address, but actually tries to verify that the domain exists too. We hope that this will ensure an even higher number of testimonials reach their recipient, but hope that this doesn’t throw up too many “false positives” too. If you feel that the system is being a little harsh when rejecting your email address, please let us know and we’ll take a look.
Preview your widget BEFORE placing it on your site
Posted on 24. Jan, 2010 by Martin in Recent Changes
Ok, so you have added a few testimonials and taken the big step towards getting those testimonials listed on your website by creating a widget, but how do you know what it will really look like without trying it out for real on your own website? How can you adjust the size, the text colour, background colour and overall composition of the widget without risking it on your site first?
We have now implemented a widget-preview facility, which will display your widget just as it should appear when added to your website. To try it out, log in to your Vouchforthis account, go to your My Widgets page, and then select the Preview link next to the widget you want to take a look at.
[Not sure what we're talking about here? If you haven't yet added any vouchforthis testimonial widgets, you will need to log in and then go to your My Widgets page and click the New Widget button. Then you can create a widget that you will then be able to paste into your website to conveniently display the testimonials you have added to Vouchforthis. Not added any testimonials yet? Ah, testimonials are the raw material you need to add to your Vouchforthis account in order to get it working for you. To add a testimonial, log in to your account and then go to the My Testimonials page and click the New Testimonial button.]
Once you have clicked on the Preview link next to your widget, you will see a full page that shows you how your widget will appear when added to your website. This show the actual width of the widget that you have chosen, all of the component colours (text, border, background) and the actual testimonials that will be included in it. Note that as you add more testimonials to vouchforthis over time they will automatically get included in your widgets, which means that the web pages that your widgets are used in will also be updated. How convenient is that?
If you don’t like how your widget looks then you can just click on the Back To Edit button to go straight to the edit widget page where you can adjust it and try again.
Launching version 2.0 of vouchforthis
Posted on 22. Jan, 2010 by Martin in Recent Changes
Welcome to our new release. It has taken us a little while to deliver, but we are pleased with the results so far, and hope you prefer it too!
Our original site (shown on the right) had more effort put on the function rather than the form. We wanted to get it up and running and being used by our beta-testers before we put the additional effort in to making it look prettier. The initial trial period has gone well, with lots of new members with varied uses of testimonials registering on the site and deploying their testimonial widgets.
With the launch of Version 2.0 we have (we think) introduced a warmer style, incorporating a nifty home page slider that shows off the main advantages of vouchforthis membership, and we have also launched our community blog (you’re looking at it now). The blog will allow us to tell you what we are working on, what we have released, and what the known issues are that we are working on – yes, we know you want perfection, but even the greatest sites in the World have bugs and usability issues; the only difference is, we will tell you what ours are and what we are doing to resolve them!
It will take a while for the blog to really get going, but we hope pretty soon to extend it, for example, to feature our new members and show you how they are using their widgets. We will also nudge you with hints and tips on how to make the most of your membership.
Whilst not delivering much in the way of new functionality Version 2.0 delivers a platform on which we can now build some really great new features. These will hopefully come thick and fast over the coming months. We will announce them here, so please subscribe to our feed and add it to your reader so that you can see new posts as soon as they are added.
Thank you for your support since our launch in November 2009. We have lots planned for 2010 and will let you know what’s in store shortly. There are likely to be little bugs that show up over the next week or so as the site is used in earnest, so please let us know if you find anything wrong.
Our widgets in action
