Reviews: add and display testimonials

The Reviews widget puts your customer reviews and testimonials on your own page, in the layout that fits it. You add each review yourself: the name, the rating, the words, an optional avatar, photos, or a short video. You tag where each one came from (Google, Trustpilot, Facebook, and more), set an overall rating to headline them, and pick from ten layouts. It ships in your brand colors and in your visitor’s language.

One thing to be clear about up front: this is a manual widget. It does not pull reviews from Google or any other platform’s API. There is no live feed and no account to connect. You type or paste your best reviews into the dashboard and choose exactly which ones show and in what order. That is on purpose, and we explain why under Why manual, not a live sync.

Turn it on

1. Open the dashboard at app.amabrik.com and go to Widgets.
2. Click the Reviews card. With no reviews widget yet, you go straight into creating one: a layout picker opens.
3. Pick a layout (you can change it later), then click “Continue with this layout”. The editor opens with a few sample reviews so you can see the look right away.
4. Replace the samples with your own reviews (next section), then flip the enable toggle. The install panel opens with your snippet.
5. If you have not pasted the Amabrik snippet on your site yet, do that once (see Getting started). For an inline layout, also drop the placeholder where you want the reviews to appear:

<div data-amabrik-reviews="YOUR_WIDGET_ID"></div>

A floating layout pins itself to a page corner on its own, so it needs no placeholder div.

The editor saves on its own as you work. A “Saved” mark appears next to the widget name once a change is stored.

Add your reviews

Reviews live in the Content tab, under the Reviews section. Click “Add review” and an entry opens with these fields:

• Name: the reviewer’s name, like “Jane Doe”.
• Role / position (optional): a job title and company, like “Marketing Director, Acme”. Shown under the name when you turn on “Show role”.
• Rating: 1 to 5, in half-star steps (4.5 is allowed).
• Date: the review date, in ISO form (for example 2026-06-01). Used for sorting by most recent and in the SEO markup.
• Review text: the quote itself.
• Avatar / photo URL (optional): a link to the reviewer’s photo. Shown when “Show avatar” is on.
• Video URL (optional): a YouTube link. Turns the card into a video testimonial.
• Photo URLs (optional): one or more image links, comma separated, for photos attached to the review.

Each review is a row you can drag to reorder. The order you set here is the order visitors see when sorting is set to Custom. Delete a review with the trash icon on its row.

Tag the source platform

Every review carries a source platform (Google, Facebook, Trustpilot, TripAdvisor, Yelp, G2, Capterra, Amazon, Booking, Apple, Google Play, Airbnb, or a custom one). New reviews default to Google. The source is stored with the review so you always know where each one came from, and it drives the platform logos shown in the Write a Review form (below). Tagging the source does not connect anything to that platform: it is a label you set, not a sync.

Set the overall rating

Below the reviews list, set the overall rating (for example 4.9) and the total reviews count (for example 1,284). These show in the header as a summary line that frames the cards below, like “4.9 from 1,284 reviews”. You set both by hand, so they read whatever you want them to. Keep them honest and matching your real totals.

Collect new reviews (the Write a Review button)

Still in Content, the Write a review button section adds a button visitors can use to leave a review. The popup it opens can be one of two kinds:

• Platform links: a list of the review sites you want people to review you on. Add a platform, paste its profile URL, and the button sends visitors there. Each platform shows with its real logo. Drag to reorder. (Amazon’s mark has no color of its own, so you pick a dark or white version to suit your background.)
• A form: the visitor enters a name, email, rating, review, and an optional photo URL right on your page. Amabrik never stores the submission. It is forwarded straight to where you choose: an email address (Send submissions to) or a webhook (Zapier, Make, Slack, Google Sheets, and the like). You can turn on invisible ALTCHA spam protection for the form.

Either way, a collected review does not appear on your widget automatically. You read it, decide whether to show it, and add it to the Reviews list yourself. You stay in control of what goes live.

Choose a layout

The layout lives in the Display tab, under the Layout section. There are ten templates, each a genuinely different look, not a recolor:

• Wall of Love: full-width rows that scroll in alternating directions and pause on hover.
• Vertical Love: vertical columns that drift up and down at different speeds, pausing on hover.
• Masonry: Pinterest-style cards of varying height packed into tidy columns.
• Bento: an editorial mosaic of four reviews with one featured card and a rating footer.
• Grid: a clean responsive grid of cards with a Load More button.
• Carousel: a swipeable slider with arrows and dots, a few cards at a time.
• Spotlight: one large testimonial at a time, centered, with arrows.
• Showcase: stacked full-width testimonials with a big round photo alternating sides.
• Split: a big featured testimonial on the left with a compact column of more on the right.
• Spotlight Pro: one big testimonial at a time, a large quote beside a large image, with arrows.

Each template card is a real, scaled preview, so what you see is what you get. Pick one and the matching pagination is set for you. Depending on the template, you also get:

• Columns (Grid, Masonry, Carousel, Vertical Love): how many across.
• Slide speed (Wall of Love, Vertical Love): how fast the rows scroll.
• Autoplay (Carousel): advance the slider on its own.
• Pagination and reviews per page (Grid, Masonry): Load more or Show all, and how many show before the button.

Set it up, tab by tab

Every Amabrik widget editor uses the same small set of tabs, so once you know one you know them all. A live desktop and mobile preview sits beside the controls, and the Save mark stays visible while you scroll.

Content

• Reviews: the reviews list, the overall rating, and the total count (above).
• Write a review button: turn the collect button on, and choose platform links or a form (above).
• Text: every label the widget shows in your default language. The heading, the overall label, the “reviews” word, the Read more / Load more / All reviews / Write a review labels, all the Write a Review form labels (rating, name, email, review, photo, submit, thank-you title and text), and the Bento footer wording. Translate these into other languages under Advanced, Languages.

Style

• Colors and style: the accent color (from a palette or a custom picker), the background (solid, gradient, or image), and the text, border, star, and quote colors, each as a full-width row. Below that, typography for the heading and the body text, and the card corner radius.
• Write a review button: when the collect button is on, style it here. Normal and hover colors for background and text, its own typography, and an optional box shadow per state (normal, hover, focus).

Display

• Layout: the template and its per-template options (above).
• Header: show or hide the header, the heading text, and the overall rating block. Set the heading tag (H1 through H6, or a plain paragraph) for SEO, and the spacing below the heading and the header.
• Review card: the quote icon style (classic, bold, modern, huge, or none), the video style (full cover or thumbnail), and switches for photos, avatar, name, and role. You can also shorten long reviews to a set number of lines (0 keeps the full text).

Advanced

• Filters and sorting: sort by your custom order, most recent, highest rated, with photos first, or random. Filter to a minimum rating, only reviews with text, or only reviews with pictures. Cap the total number shown. And turn on Schema.org markup, which adds AggregateRating and Review structured data for search engines (see the FAQ on search stars).
• Google Analytics: send events (widget viewed, write-review clicked, review submitted, carousel navigated, photo opened, video opened) to the GA4 or Tag Manager already on your site. Amabrik does not load analytics, events respect cookie consent, and nothing fires until you add an event.
• Languages: the multi-language settings (below).

Styling

The widget renders inside a Shadow DOM, so your site’s CSS can never leak in and break it, and the widget’s CSS can never affect your page. You control the accent, background, text, border, star, and quote colors, the heading and body typography, the corner radius, the quote icon, and the spacing, all from the Style and Display tabs. The preview updates live, and you can toggle between desktop and mobile to check both.

Languages

Every Amabrik widget can show in more than one language, and the Reviews widget is no exception. Open Advanced, Languages:

• Default language: the language shown by default and whenever auto-detect finds no match.
• Auto-detect the visitor’s language: when on, the widget shows in the visitor’s browser language if you have added it, otherwise the default.
• Preview language: switch the live preview to any language you have added.
• Add a language: pick from the list. Each added language gets its own row with a Translate button that opens fields for every label, plus a per-review translation for the review text, the name, and the role. Your default language is edited in the Content tab.

The visitor sees the labels and the collect form in their own language, served automatically.

Tips: how to collect reviews to add

Because reviews are entered by hand, you need a steady supply to add. A few ways to get them:

• Turn on the Write a Review form so visitors can leave one without going anywhere else. New ones land in your inbox or CRM, and you add the good ones after reading them.
• Use the platform links option to send happy customers to Google, Trustpilot, or wherever you collect, then copy their published reviews onto your widget.
• Bring across reviews that already exist: ones on your Google profile, a Trustpilot or G2 page, or an old testimonials page. Copy the name, rating, words, and date, and tag the source.
• Ask by email or after a purchase. A short, direct request usually works better than a generic one.

Add only reviews that are real and that you have permission to show. Editing or inventing reviews is both dishonest and, in the United States, against the FTC’s final rule banning fake reviews and testimonials, in force since October 2024.

FAQ

Does it sync automatically from Google, Trustpilot, or Facebook?

No, and that is deliberate. You add each review yourself and tag its source, so you decide exactly which reviews show and in what order. You can lead with your best and never surface a bad one by accident. There is no API to connect, no token to refresh, and no unfiltered feed that could change without you. A live sync trades that control for convenience, and we think your proof page is worth controlling.

Can I show reviews from different platforms together?

Yes. Each review carries a source tag (Google, Trustpilot, Facebook, Yelp, TripAdvisor, G2, Capterra, Amazon, and more), so you can mix reviews from anywhere in one widget. The source you tag also sets which platform logos appear in the Write a Review form.

Can I show photo and video reviews?

Yes. A review can be a written quote, can carry one or more photos (the Photo URLs field), or can be a video testimonial (paste a YouTube link in the Video URL field). In the Review card settings you choose whether videos show as a full cover or a thumbnail, and whether photos and avatars appear at all.

Will this get me star ratings in Google search results?

No widget can promise that. The widget can add Schema.org AggregateRating and Review markup (turn it on under Advanced, Filters and sorting), which is the correct structured data, but Google decides whether to show rich-result stars and generally does not award them for self-placed review widgets. Treat the markup as good practice, not a guarantee of search stars. The real job of this widget is convincing the visitor already on your page.

Where do submitted reviews go? Does Amabrik store them?

Amabrik never stores submitted reviews. The Write a Review form is a pure pass-through: it forwards each submission straight to the email address or webhook you set, then forgets it. You read the submission and add the review to your widget yourself if you want to show it.

How many reviews can I add?

You can add up to several hundred reviews per widget. For most sites you will want far fewer: the research shows the trust jump comes from your first handful of strong reviews, so a curated set usually beats a long unfiltered list.

Can I control the order reviews appear in?

Yes. Set sorting to Custom under Advanced, and drag reviews into the order you want in the Content tab. Other sort options (most recent, highest rated, with photos first, random) are there if you would rather the widget order them for you.

Does the overall rating come from the reviews I add?

No, you set the overall rating and the total count by hand in the Content tab. This lets the headline reflect your real totals across every platform, not just the reviews you happened to add to the widget. Keep both honest and matching your actual numbers.