How Do I Get My First Website Testimonial?

[Dan Arnautu]

Hey guys, so I'm just trying to launch a guitar teaching business. My website is almost ready at http://danarnautu.com , but I haven't had a client yet and I wonder if testimonials from people I collaborated with would count (friends from music universities and what not) or if I should remove the testimonial section until after I get my first clients. What do you think?

Thanks in advance!

[Visitor]

Your website is about teaching. Your testimonials should testify that you can teach.

[Siim Land]

Get free clients

[Nahm]

@Dan Arnautu Just took a look. Looks really sharp man. I could only read the one page because I am not bilingual. I have taught many people how to play guitar but I have never made money or a business or website from it. I think visitor's advice is solid. Probably not what you want to hear, but If you're seeking local clients, teach some people guitar for free. Create a meetup.com of free guitar lessons, people will show up. It would be good use of your time to teach to multiple people vs 10 one on one lessons. If you're looking for national clients, just have your buddies write testimonials, spend your time linking to every website you possibly can. If it's affordable, set up adwords on google and pay per click. Do you have a YouTube channel? That's a good way to get people to your website. What about local music stores? Maybe they give lessons, maybe not.  You could be their guy. What about schools? Walk into a school, (unless you already know a teacher) and propose to spend an hour explaining guitar, encouraging kids to play, explaining all the benefits; self confidence, brain functionality, emotional intelligence, uh fucking joy, etc. At the end, when the kids applauded and say thank you, ask if they will go to your website and post a testimonial. Again, good use of your time. If your schools are anything like America's, there should be around 300 kids in each classroom. 

Another note, have you listed your business on google? If not, do that! Then update something simple within your google account each week. Google things like "guitar lessons" and look at the top 3 listings. Then look at pages 1-5 on google and see how many bullshit webpages those top three are listen on. Then list your business on twice as many pages. Takes a couple minutes per page. Then, when that's done, ask people to put testimonials on your google page as reviews. This will (in a few months) lead to you coming up first on google. You can always copy the reviews from your google page and paste them into your website. 

Good luck with it!!!

[Dan Arnautu]

@Siim Land I tried it many times and they seem to not see the real value of the free work I do. Meaning they do not practice and do not implement the things that will get them to their goal if I give it to them for free.

I saw that in myself too. When I was paying little money for lessons I did not deem them as that important. Now I pay about 50 Eur per lesson and I get a lot more results. Not saying that I would charge that much, but doing it for free just gives me headaches. 

Same with when I gave personalized nutritional programs and workout routines for free to my friends. Then, when I said I would start to charge them because they were not taking any action, they started leaning down (~10 kg) in a dime.

[Siim Land]

@Dan Arnautu Another option would be to lead with massive value by creating free content around your offer. Then create interest for your product or service until someone gets the bait. I mean offer.

[Dan Arnautu]

@Siim Land Yea, I will maybe try and make an e-book or e-guide that I can give for free and also create some blog posts. Forgot about that.

[PippieStrueg]

Not a lot of people agree with me but here it goes:

Testimonials are not necessarily written as real testimonials. I have written many of them. If you are looking for genuine testimonials, yes you should approach people you have worked with, see it as a reference. But the average Jane Doe doesn't really care about names of leading people in the business.

Same as blogs, these are all written by editors, and the goal is to put in as much SEO words as your creativity can handle. So testimonials and blogs do the same thing: rank you higher on the search lists.

So you need testimonials? Write them!

I made half an annual salary writing comments on Amazon.com about products and how great they were. I made about a dollar a posting. Good money but totally made up I never used the product let alone I bought it. Amazon is only interested in high ratings, and that is it. People want to be deceived and the internet is the perfect platform to do that. Surf along!

 

[Dan Arnautu]

6 minutes ago, PippieStrueg said:

So you need testimonials? Write them!

What do you mean? Write my own testimonials?

[PippieStrueg]

Yes.

"My guitar class with Dan was absolutely a great experience. I was nervous to get started. As a child I had played the guitar just for fun. But now I'm a grown up I found it hard to go back to reading notes and finding all the right notes on the guitar. But Dan made me feel it's a breeze. It's not, it's hard work. Dan knows that. So do I. But he gave me the feeling I can accomplish this. I would totally recommend Dan."

Sylvia R. [Vancouver Island, Canada] -> change name

 

Translate that put it on your website. If you want an SEO written testimonial I'll send you my paypal Good luck anyone can do it and anyone does

 

Edited June 7, 2017 by PippieStrueg
lousy grammar

[Dan Arnautu]

@PippieStrueg I understand, but do you mean that I should lie and make up testimonials? This kind of goes against my values.

[PippieStrueg]

4 minutes ago, Dan Arnautu said:

@PippieStrueg I understand, but do you mean that I should lie and make up testimonials? This kind of goes against my values.

Well that's the trade of. You want to get your name out there and have people find you on the internet. Then you lie.

You want to stay true to yourself? Find people that are willing to write a testimonial for you and find value in that. There is good in both these options.

Edited June 7, 2017 by PippieStrueg

[Dan Arnautu]

@PippieStrueg I think I'm gonna build testimonials organically. Thank you for taking the time to answer though.