Every business needs to utilize a wide variety of strategies for increasing their visibility.  One technique that is extremely effective and often overlooked is to leave other businesses a sincere and glowing testimonial.  What company could resist showing off a raving review of their product or service?

Think about products and services that you’ve purchased recently.  Have you had a fantastic massage or facial at a spa recently? If you’re a health and wellness professional, a spa has the type of clients you’d like to be in front of.  Imagine your local and very popular spa posting a testimonial from you with a link back to your website.  Can you imagine how this would be beneficial to your business?

Make a list of businesses to which you can offer a testimonial.  Send them a friendly note, and mention that you saw they had a testimonial page on their website and you’d love to contribute.  Include your name and website and request politely if they wouldn’t mind including your link if they decide to publish your feedback.  Be sure to offer specific benefits you received rather than being general.  A good testimonial explains why their product was outstanding rather than being general that it was great.  For instance, “The facial I received at your spa was very relaxing and my skin looked much brighter and smoother for weeks after.  Compared to other spas, your facial is really special” rather than “Your facial was wonderful”.  See the difference?

Businesses that are related to yours are ideal, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not wise to offer positive feedback to a business which is unrelated to your own.  For example, have you ever Googled yourself or a friend and come across a review they left on Amazon or a blog comment?  A friend of mine gave a testimonial to her plumbing company and it shows up in the search engines whenever her high profile husband is Googled.

Another benefit to leaving a testimonial is that most webmasters will offer to give you a backlink to your website, which can help your website’s search engine optimization ranking.  Leaving testimonials is just good karma in more ways than one.