Most firms are not short of proof. They have done the work for years and it went well.
The trouble is where it lives. Logos in the footer. A page called Case Studies that gets opened by almost nobody. Praise from a happy client, four clicks in.
Proof placed late is proof wasted
Somebody weighing you against three others gives each site about fifteen seconds. Then they decide whether to keep reading.
Anything that would have won them over has to show up before they stop looking. Filed two pages in, it may as well not be there.
Not all proof is equal
A wall of logos says other people hired you. That is weaker than it looks. Everyone has a wall of logos, and nobody can tell if the job was big or tiny.
One example at their size does more, with what was wrong and what changed. A reader recognising their own situation beats a hundred badges.
The kind that backfires
Praise from a first name and a job title, with no firm anyone can look up, reads as invented. Often it is not, which makes it worse. Real praise, thrown away.
The careful reader, who is usually the client you want, checks. If they cannot find the person, they stop believing the rest of the page too.
Nothing at all is safer than something that cannot be checked. That is why there is no praise anywhere on this site. We would rather show none than show three that nobody could look up.
Where it belongs
Next to the thing it backs up. If a page says you handle awkward tax work, the example of awkward tax work goes on that page, not in a separate gallery.
Proof is not a section of the site. It is something you do next to every claim you make.
Worth checking
Open your home page and stop at the fold. Ask what a stranger has been given so far, other than your word for it.
On most sites the honest answer is nothing, and everything that would have helped is further down, on a page they will never reach.
