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Link Building With Testimonials

BacklinkScan Teamon Dec 25, 2025
25 min read

Link building with testimonials is a simple, white-hat way to earn high-quality backlinks while building real trust. By offering genuine customer testimonials, leveraging existing business relationships, and placing reviews on relevant, authoritative sites, you can attract editorial links, boost referral traffic, and strengthen your overall SEO and brand credibility.

In this guide, you’ll learn how testimonial link building works, why it’s so effective for authority and visibility, and the practical steps to find opportunities, craft compelling reviews, and secure links without spammy outreach. By the end, you’ll know exactly how to turn honest feedback into sustainable link building with testimonials.

Simple definition in plain language

Testimonial link building means you give a genuine, public testimonial for a product, tool, or service you actually use, and in return the company publishes your quote on their site with a link back to yours.

You get a relevant backlink and some exposure. They get social proof that helps them sell. It is basically “happy customer gives a quote, brand shows it off, everyone wins.”

In practice, it usually looks like this:

  1. You identify a product, SaaS, plugin, or service you rely on and genuinely like.
  2. You send them a short testimonial that includes your name, role, company, and website.
  3. Their marketing team adds your quote to a high‑visibility page such as the homepage, a testimonials page, or a case study.
  4. When they credit you, they often link your name, logo, or company name to your site.

Because these pages are built to convert visitors, they tend to live on strong, authoritative domains and stay online for a long time. That means your testimonial link can send both referral traffic and positive authority signals to search engines for years, without you constantly “maintaining” it.

Why this tactic is considered white‑hat and low risk

Testimonial link building is widely seen as a white‑hat, low‑risk tactic because:

  • The value exchange is natural. You are giving real feedback and a marketing asset the company can use. The link is simply an attribution, not the whole point of the interaction.
  • It aligns with search guidelines. Search engines warn against large‑scale, manipulative link schemes, but they do not discourage normal editorial mentions, reviews, or testimonials that exist to help users. Problems arise when links are bought, automated, or stuffed with keyword‑rich anchor text, not when a real customer is credited with a link.
  • It is based on real experience. You are only writing testimonials for products you actually use, which fits the broader push toward experience‑based, trustworthy content.

As long as your testimonials are honest, not mass‑produced, and you are not trying to hide paid links or force exact‑match anchors, testimonial link building stays firmly in the “safe and sustainable” category of link strategies.

Types of businesses and niches that benefit most

Testimonial link building works best for brands that already use a lot of software, tools, or professional services and can speak credibly about them. In practice, it tends to be especially effective for:

  • B2B SaaS and tech companies, which rely on integrations, plugins, and a big tool stack. These vendors often showcase customer stories and are happy to link back to real users.
  • Agencies and consultants in SEO, marketing, development, design, and PR, because they work with many platforms and partners who publish case studies and “customer success” pages.
  • Professional services like law, finance, healthcare, and IT, where tools and specialist vendors want credible business clients as proof of trust.

Ecommerce brands and local businesses can also benefit, but usually at a smaller scale, since they tend to use fewer “testimonial‑friendly” platforms.

Testimonial link building is not a magic bullet. It is a poor fit when:

  • You barely use any tools or services beyond basic hosting and email. You simply will not have enough genuine experiences to talk about.
  • You are tempted to write fake or exaggerated testimonials just to get links. That risks trust, can violate Google’s spam policies, and may conflict with FTC endorsement rules in the United States if the testimonial is misleading or undisclosed.
  • Your niche is highly regulated and every endorsement needs legal review. In those cases, getting approval for public testimonials can be slow or impossible.
  • You already have an over‑optimized backlink profile heavy on one tactic. Adding dozens more similar links can look unnatural, even if each one is technically white‑hat.

If you cannot give honest, specific praise that would still make sense without a link, testimonial link building is not the right approach.

Testimonial links are usually slow, steady wins, not a high‑volume growth hack. A realistic plan might be:

  • Aim for a handful of strong testimonial links per quarter, not dozens per month. Many SEOs recommend keeping testimonial backlinks as a small share of your overall profile so things stay natural.
  • Expect branded or URL anchors pointing to your homepage or a company profile, not keyword‑rich anchors to deep pages. These links are more about authority and trust than exact‑match rankings.
  • Measure success by a mix of referral traffic, brand visibility, and incremental authority, not just by raw link count. One link from a respected SaaS or agency site can be more valuable than ten from small, low‑traffic blogs.

If you view testimonial link building as a supporting tactic alongside content, digital PR, and other white‑hat methods, it can quietly compound over time without putting your site at risk.

Make a list of your current SaaS, plugins, and service providers

Start with the tools and services you already pay for or rely on every week. These are your warmest testimonial link prospects, because you are a real customer with real results.

Go through:

  • Your accounting or billing system to see recurring SaaS subscriptions.
  • Your website stack: CMS, themes, plugins, hosting, analytics, email tools, chat widgets, A/B testing, etc.
  • Operational tools: CRM, project management, help desk, scheduling, proposal software.
  • Service providers: agencies, freelancers, consultants, fulfillment partners, manufacturers.

Drop everything into a simple spreadsheet with columns like: tool/service name, URL, what you use it for, how long you have used it, and a quick note on the main outcome (for example “cut onboarding time by 40%”). This will later help you write specific, credible testimonials.

If you work with clients, you can also ask for a list of their core tools and vendors. Agencies and consultants can often unlock dozens of extra testimonial link opportunities from a single client’s tech stack.

Check if they have public testimonial or “what our customers say” pages

Next, you want to see which of these companies already showcase customer quotes on their site. Those are your easiest wins.

For each domain, quickly search in Google or your preferred search engine using operators like:

  • site:example.com testimonials
  • site:example.com "what our customers say"
  • "[product name]" + "testimonial"

On the site itself, check the main navigation and footer for links like “Customers,” “Stories,” “Case studies,” or “Success stories.” Many SaaS companies group testimonials under these sections rather than a single “Testimonials” page.

When you find a relevant page, look at:

  • Whether they show customer names, roles, and company names.
  • Whether they link out to customer websites from logos, names, or case study pages.

If they already link to other customers, there is a good chance they will be open to linking to you as well when they publish your testimonial.

How to quickly vet sites for authority, relevance, and traffic

Not every testimonial link opportunity is worth your time. Before you pitch, do a quick quality check so you focus on sites that can actually move the needle.

Use any mainstream SEO tool to look at three things:

  1. Authority Check a domain‑level metric such as Domain Rating, Domain Authority, or Authority Score. You do not need a perfect number, but as a rough filter, many link builders focus on sites in the mid‑range (for example DR/DA 30–50+) and avoid very weak domains.

  2. Organic traffic and trends Look at estimated monthly organic traffic and its trend over time. A healthy site usually has consistent or slowly growing traffic. Be cautious if a domain has high authority metrics but almost no traffic or a sharp recent drop, which can signal manipulation or penalties.

  3. Topical relevance and quality Visit the site and skim a few pages. Ask:

  • Do they serve a similar audience or industry as you?
  • Is the content real, useful, and written for humans, not just search engines?
  • Do existing outbound links look natural, not like a link farm or directory?

If a tool or provider passes these checks and already features customer stories, you have a strong testimonial link prospect that is worth a thoughtful outreach email.

Finding new testimonial prospects beyond your own stack

Using clients’ tech stacks and vendors as extra targets

Your own tools are only the starting point. Every client you work with also has a tech stack and a list of vendors that can turn into testimonial link opportunities. Agencies and consultants in particular can uncover dozens of prospects from a single client account.

Start by asking new and existing clients for a simple list of the software, platforms, and key services they rely on. Think billing tools, CRM, email platforms, analytics, hosting, logistics, or niche SaaS. You already have real experience with many of these tools through the client’s projects, so you can write honest, specific testimonials.

When you spot a promising product, check whether they showcase customer stories or “trusted by” sections that mention agencies, partners, or power users. If your work helped the client get strong results with that tool, you can pitch a joint testimonial or case study that highlights all three parties: the vendor, your client, and your business. That gives the vendor a richer story and increases the odds they link to both you and the client.

Looking at suppliers, partners, and agencies you work with

Beyond software, look at every business relationship around you: suppliers, white‑label partners, fulfillment centers, printers, accountants, legal firms, creative studios, and marketing agencies. Many of them publish “client stories” or “what our customers say” pages and are hungry for credible quotes.

Make a quick inventory of these relationships and rank them by:

  • How central they are to your operations
  • Whether they already feature testimonials with links
  • How strong and relevant their site appears

If you have a long‑term, positive relationship, you are in a perfect position to offer a testimonial. You can even suggest a co‑branded mini case study that shows how their service helped you serve your own customers better. That kind of story is more likely to be promoted on their homepage or resources section, which usually means a stronger backlink and more referral traffic for you.

One of the fastest ways to find new testimonial prospects is to see where your competitors have already earned testimonial links. Many SEO tools let you plug in a competitor’s domain and filter their backlinks for URLs containing words like “testimonial,” “review,” “case‑study,” or “customer‑story.” This reveals vendors and platforms that are clearly open to publishing testimonials with links.

Once you have that list, visit each page and ask:

  • Does the vendor serve your audience or niche as well?
  • Are they linking out to the customer’s site, not just naming them?
  • Is the testimonial prominent (homepage, key landing page) or buried?

If the fit is good, you can approach the same vendor with your own experience and results. Do not copy your competitor’s angle; instead, offer a fresh, specific story that shows how you use the product differently. Over time, this “reverse‑engineering” approach helps you build a focused list of testimonial link prospects that are already proven to say yes.

Must‑have elements: name, role, brand, URL, and specific outcome

A testimonial that earns you a backlink needs to look useful and credible to the company, not just to search engines. At minimum, include:

  • Full name (or at least first name + last initial if privacy is a concern).
  • Role or job title, so readers know who you are and why your opinion matters.
  • Brand or company name, ideally the one you want linked.
  • URL of your site, written clearly so it is easy to copy or hyperlink.
  • Specific outcome or result, such as time saved, revenue gained, leads generated, or a clear improvement.

Put these together in a short, tight quote. For example, instead of “Great tool, highly recommend,” write something like: “Using X, our small agency cut reporting time by 40% and closed two extra retainers in the first quarter.”

The more concrete and identifiable you are, the more likely the company is to feature your testimonial on a page that includes a live link.

Writing testimonials that sound authentic, not like SEO bait

An authentic testimonial sounds like something you would actually say in a call with a friend. Avoid keyword stuffing, buzzwords, and over‑the‑top claims. Focus on:

  • Plain language: Write how you speak. Short sentences beat long, fluffy ones.
  • One main benefit: Pick the single biggest win and center the quote on that.
  • A bit of context: Mention who you are and what problem you had before using the product or service.

Instead of forcing anchor text like “best project management software for agencies,” let the company decide how to link. Your job is to give them a clear, honest story that makes them look good. When the testimonial reads like a mini case study, it feels natural for them to publish it and credit you with a link.

Examples of short testimonial snippets that get used

Here are a few simple testimonial snippets that are short, specific, and very likely to be used on a testimonials or case study page:

  • “After switching to X, our 5‑person team at [Brand] cut onboarding time from two weeks to four days.”
  • “X helped us grow organic traffic to [YourBrand.com] by 65% in six months without increasing ad spend.”
  • “As Head of Operations at [Brand], I rely on X daily to keep three warehouses in sync and reduce stockouts.”
  • “We used X to replace three separate tools, saving about $900 a month across our marketing stack at [Brand].”

Each one includes a role or company, a clear outcome, and a natural mention of the brand or URL. That mix makes the testimonial easy to drop into a page and gives the company a strong reason to include your link.

Outreach: how to offer a testimonial without sounding pushy

Who to contact for testimonial opportunities inside a company

Start with the people who actually own customer stories. In most companies, that is usually:

  • Marketing or content marketing teams
  • Customer marketing or customer success managers
  • Partnerships / partner marketing for B2B tools and agencies

If you already have a main contact (an account manager, CSM, or founder), ask them first and let them route you internally. A simple “If it is helpful, I would be happy to provide a testimonial or short case study” at the end of a regular email often opens the door.

For smaller companies, reach out directly to the founder or head of marketing. For larger SaaS or enterprise tools, look for titles like “Customer Marketing Manager,” “Advocacy Manager,” or “Case Study Manager” on LinkedIn or the company’s “About” or “Team” page.

Keep it personal: reference how you use the product, not just that you want a backlink.

Email templates for offering a quote or case study

You do not need a long pitch. Short, specific, and generous works best. Here are three simple frameworks you can adapt.

1. Simple “happy customer” offer

Subject: Happy customer at [Your Company]

Hi [Name],

We have been using [Product] at [Your Company] for [time period], and it has helped us [1–2 specific outcomes, ideally with a number].

If you are ever looking for customer quotes or case studies, I would be happy to share a short testimonial and include our logo and website.

No need to do anything now, just wanted to put my hand up as a willing customer if it is useful.

Best, [Your Name] [Role], [Company] [URL]

2. Case study–focused offer

Subject: Potential case study: [Result] with [Product]

Hi [Name],

I thought you might like to know we recently [achieved X result] after using [Product] for [time period]. If you are collecting customer stories, I would be glad to do a short case study or interview and share the details.

Happy to include our logo, a headshot, and a link to our site if that is helpful for your page.

If this sounds interesting, I can send a 2–3 sentence summary this week.

Thanks, [Your Name]

3. Partnership / co‑marketing angle

Subject: Small co‑marketing idea with [Product]

Hi [Name],

We are long‑time users of [Product] at [Your Company], and it plays a big role in [what you use it for]. I would love to contribute a testimonial or mini case study that you can use on your site or in your marketing.

In return, we would be happy to share the piece with our audience and link to it from our site as well.

If that is something you do, who is the best person to coordinate with?

Best, [Your Name]

You can tweak the tone to match your brand, but keep the focus on their benefit: a strong, specific story they can use.

Following up politely and handling “yes,” “no,” or no response

If you do not hear back, wait 7–10 days before following up. One short reminder is usually enough; two at most. After that, let it go.

A gentle follow‑up might look like this:

Hi [Name], just bumping this in case it slipped your inbox. Happy to send over a 2–3 sentence testimonial if that is useful for your customer stories. Either way, thanks again for building a great product.

If they say yes:

  • Reply quickly and thank them.
  • Ask if they have any guidelines (length, topics, legal wording, logo usage).
  • Deliver exactly what you promised, on time, in a clean format they can copy and paste.
  • You can lightly mention your preferred link format: “If you include our site, this is the URL we usually use: [URL].”

If they say no:

  • Thank them anyway and keep the relationship warm.
  • You can still send a short quote they may use later, without pushing for a link.

If there is no response after a follow‑up:

  • Assume they are not interested right now.
  • Do not keep nudging; it starts to feel transactional.
  • Continue being a good customer. You can try again in a few months if the relationship deepens or you have a new, stronger result to share.

The goal of outreach for testimonial link building is to be the easiest, most pleasant customer they work with. When you make their job simple and respect their time, the backlinks tend to follow naturally.

Ideal page placement: homepage vs. testimonials vs. case studies

Where your testimonial link lives on a site affects how much SEO value it can pass. In general, the closer it is to important, well‑linked pages, the better.

A testimonial on the homepage is usually the strongest option. Homepages tend to have the most backlinks and internal links, so any outbound link from there is more likely to be crawled often and carry more authority. If you can get your logo, brand name, and a link in a homepage testimonial slider or “trusted by” section, that is ideal.

Dedicated testimonials pages are the next best thing. They are often linked from the main navigation or footer, which still gives them decent internal authority. If your testimonial appears high on the page, with a clear link to your site, it can still be a very solid backlink.

Case studies can be even more powerful when they exist as full content pages. A detailed customer story that mentions your brand, links to your site, and gets shared or referenced can attract its own backlinks. The trade‑off is that case studies are harder to secure and take more work to produce, but they can send both SEO value and qualified referral traffic.

Anchor text and how your site is mentioned

With testimonial link building, you usually do not control the exact anchor text, but you can influence it. When you send your testimonial, include a short preferred mention line, for example:

“Alex Rivera, Founder at GrowthNorth (growthnorth.com)”

This gently encourages the site owner to use your brand name plus your URL as the anchor or nearby text. Branded anchors are natural, safe, and fit how testimonials are normally formatted.

Avoid pushing for keyword‑stuffed anchors like “best SEO agency in New York.” That looks forced in a testimonial and can raise red flags. Instead, let the keyword context live in the testimonial copy itself: mention the type of service or result you got, while keeping the actual link branded or URL‑based.

Also pay attention to co‑occurrence. Even if the anchor is just your brand, having your niche, service, or location mentioned in the same sentence still helps search engines understand what you do.

To get real SEO value from testimonial links, you need to track them. At a minimum, keep a simple sheet with:

  • The site and page where your testimonial should appear
  • The URL they link to
  • The anchor text or how your brand is mentioned
  • The date it went live

Use a backlink or site‑audit tool to check that the link is do‑follow, still live, and not blocked by robots or noindex tags. Set a reminder to recheck every few months, since pages get redesigned and links can disappear.

To measure impact on rankings, watch a small set of target pages and keywords that your testimonial links point to. Track:

  • Organic traffic to those pages
  • Average position for key terms
  • Click‑through rate from search results

You will rarely see a single testimonial link move rankings on its own. Instead, look for gradual improvements as you add more high‑quality testimonial links on relevant, authoritative sites. Combine that data with referral traffic and any leads or sales that come from those pages, and you will have a clear picture of how valuable this tactic is for your SEO.

Advanced twists: video, case studies, and third‑party review sites

Turning your testimonial into a short video or mini case study

Once you have a strong written testimonial, you can turn it into richer assets that attract more attention and links. Video testimonials work well because they feel personal and hard to fake. A simple setup is enough: ask the customer to record a 60–90 second clip on their laptop or phone answering three prompts: what problem they had, what they tried, and what changed after using your product or service. Short, specific answers are easier for other sites to embed and for you to pitch as part of a testimonial link.

For a mini case study, expand the same story into a quick “before and after” snapshot. Include the client’s context, the key action they took with your help, and 1–3 measurable outcomes. This format can live on your site, but it is also something vendors and partners like to feature on their own blogs or resource pages, often with a backlink to you as the customer.

Third‑party review platforms act as powerful social proof and often rank for high‑intent searches in your niche. For B2B software and tools, sites like G2 and Capterra dominate category and comparison queries. For agencies, consultants, and service providers, directories similar to Clutch or other industry‑specific review sites play a similar role. These profiles usually allow you to list your website, which becomes a trusted backlink, and your reviews can be quoted by vendors in their own marketing.

To get featured, claim or create your profile, then run a focused review campaign. Invite happy customers, give them simple instructions, and avoid scripting their words. Many platforms have strict rules against incentives that are not disclosed, so always follow their guidelines and any applicable advertising rules. Over time, a steady flow of honest reviews can improve your visibility in those directories and send referral traffic as well as indirect SEO benefits.

Repurposing testimonials into content and social proof on your own site

A single testimonial can fuel many pieces of content. You can:

  • Pull one strong sentence as a quote for your homepage or key landing pages.
  • Turn the full story into a blog‑style case study or “success story” article.
  • Slice video testimonials into short clips for social media, email, and product pages.

When you repurpose testimonials, keep attribution clear: show the customer’s name, role, company, and, when allowed, a logo. This makes the social proof feel real and gives partners more reason to link back when they showcase the story on their own sites. Over time, a library of testimonials, videos, and case studies becomes a content asset you can reference in outreach, link building, and sales, all while reinforcing trust with both users and search engines.

Coming across as insincere or transactional

One of the fastest ways to kill a testimonial link opportunity is to sound like you only care about the backlink. When your email reads like, “I’ll give you a testimonial if you link to my site with this anchor text,” it feels like a trade, not genuine feedback. That can make companies nervous about both SEO risk and brand reputation.

Avoid this by leading with your real experience, not your SEO goal. Mention how the product helped, share a specific result, and only then note that you are happy for them to include your name, role, and site if they publish your quote. Keep the tone warm and human, not like a contract negotiation.

Another sign of insincerity is a testimonial that sounds like ad copy instead of a real person. Over‑the‑top claims, buzzwords, and generic praise are easy to spot. Use plain language, concrete details, and realistic outcomes. If your testimonial would still make sense even if there were no link, you are on the right track.

Offering testimonials for tools you barely used

Giving testimonials for tools you barely touched is not just bad form; it can cross into deceptive endorsement territory. The FTC’s guidance is clear that endorsements should reflect honest opinions and real experience, and you should not talk about using a product if you have not actually used it or if your experience was different from what you claim.

From an SEO and relationship angle, shallow or fake testimonials also backfire. If the vendor senses you are exaggerating, they are less likely to feature you. If customers later see you praising something you clearly do not use, it hurts your own brand trust.

Only offer testimonials for products or services you have genuinely used enough to speak about specific outcomes. If your experience was mixed, you can either decline to give a testimonial or share a balanced, accurate quote and let the company decide whether to use it. Never promise results you did not get, and do not imply ongoing use if you have already stopped.

Many companies have clear guidelines for testimonials and reviews: word limits, what you can mention, whether they allow links, and how they handle disclosures. Ignoring those rules is a quick way to get your submission rejected or heavily edited.

Before you send anything, check:

  • Do they have instructions for customer stories or testimonials?
  • Do they specify whether URLs are allowed and how they will be formatted?
  • Do they require any legal language, permissions, or rights to reuse your quote?

On top of site‑specific rules, you also need to stay within advertising and endorsement law. In the United States, the FTC’s Endorsement Guides and its newer rule on consumer reviews and testimonials require that endorsements be truthful, not misleading, and that any “material connection” (like payment, discounts, or other benefits) be clearly disclosed.

For testimonial link building, that means:

  • Do not fabricate or buy fake testimonials.
  • Do not hide compensation, affiliate relationships, or special deals if they exist.
  • Do not claim results that are not typical or that the provider cannot substantiate.

If you are ever unsure, keep your testimonial conservative, accurate, and transparent. When in doubt, ask the company’s marketing or legal contact how they prefer you handle disclosures. That way you protect your own brand, respect the law, and keep testimonial link building a genuinely low‑risk, white‑hat tactic.