How to collect and display customer testimonials

A useful testimonial explains what changed for a customer. “Great product” is pleasant feedback, but “We replaced our weekly spreadsheet check with a five-minute review” tells a visitor much more.

Collecting these quotes takes a small process. You need a way to ask, somewhere to store responses, permission to publish them, and a place on your site where they help people decide.

Sitebase’s testimonials feature provides a collection form and several display layouts. New visitor submissions stay private until you approve them.

Sitebase is in private beta. If you don’t have access yet, join the waiting list. These setup steps are for accounts with access.

Ask after a useful result

Contact a customer after they’ve had time to use what you sell. Give them a specific question they can answer in their own words.

For example: “What were you trying to do, and what changed after using the product?”

Tell them where you’d like to publish their response. Ask whether you can include their name, role, and company. Keep a record of that permission alongside your own customer records.

Avoid writing praise for them to sign off on. A short, specific answer in their own words gives you something you can publish accurately.

Create the collection form

Add Testimonials when creating your website in Sitebase, or enable it from + Add more on an existing site.

Open the feature’s Setup tab. The collection form uses the form variant. You can place it on a feedback page or share its hosted URL directly with customers.

The hosted URL has this format; replace YOUR_TESTIMONIALS_KEY with the feature key from your dashboard:

https://sitebase.dev/embed/YOUR_TESTIMONIALS_KEY?variant=form

Before sending it, open the URL yourself and submit a test quote. Confirm that it appears in the feature’s Data tab and hasn’t appeared on the public display.

Enable Turnstile in your site’s settings before making the collection form publicly available. Configure real keys for forms rendered directly on your domain; hosted embed pages use Sitebase’s own keys. Use the preview to check that the form asks for the information you need.

Review before publishing

Read each submission in Data. Check the customer’s name, the quote, and your permission to publish it.

Approve the quotes you want to show. Keep irrelevant or unsuitable submissions hidden. You can also add a testimonial manually if you received it by email, but check its publication status: manually added quotes are approved immediately.

If you shorten a quote, preserve its meaning. Ask the customer to confirm substantive edits. A display system can manage publication, but it can’t establish permission on your behalf.

Put the approved quotes on your website

Sitebase supports a wall, grid, carousel, and marquee. Start with the layout that fits the available space. A short wall near your product explanation is a reasonable first placement.

To show only the approved quotes, use the wall variant. Here’s the script format with an example key placeholder:

<script
  async
  crossorigin="anonymous"
  src="https://sitebase.dev/embed.js"
  data-sitebase-widget="YOUR_TESTIMONIALS_KEY"
  data-sitebase-variant="wall"
></script>

Copy the actual snippet from your dashboard. In an Astro page, add is:inline so the script stays intact. For a React section or a URL-only editor, the hosted embed can be easier to install:

<iframe
  src="https://sitebase.dev/embed/YOUR_TESTIMONIALS_KEY?variant=wall"
  title="Customer testimonials"
  style="width:100%;height:600px;border:0"
></iframe>

Adjust the iframe height to fit the quotes on desktop and mobile. The form and wall variants use the same feature key, so you can collect on one page and display on another.

Check the approval flow end to end

Submit a second test testimonial from the public collection form. Confirm that it remains hidden, then approve it and reload the display page. Allow for cached content to refresh.

Move it back to pending and check that it disappears after the display refreshes. Remove your test quotes before sharing the page.

Also look at the display with no approved testimonials. Your page should still explain the product without depending on a wall of quotes that doesn’t exist yet.

For all layout options, see the testimonials documentation. If visitors need a way to ask questions after reading the quotes, add a contact form.