Ivan
It's easy to create a group of clients that can serve as potential testimonials. You reach out to them with an email, ask if they would be willing to participate, and when they say yes, 'lead' them onto what you'd like them to write. Afterwards, just tell them that you will slightly edit their answers to fit your content 'style'. Share the edits with them and if you don't get objections, you're golden.Also, testimonials work better if signed and with a photo.
This is assuming that your clients can potentially know each other – think mid-level executives, niche things – mostly in tech and SaaS.
Then again, you can completely make them up. I've done that to great success. Make sure to target your top 3 demographics with three testimonials. In each, describe a different obstacle to purchase and how it was overcome. Again, golden.

Davis
I don't know about overseas but in Australia this would get you in you trouble with the ACCC. I send this link to any client of mine who suggests fake reviews. That way I have a paper trail that prevents any liability. https://www.accc.gov.au/business/advertising-promoting-your-business/managing-online-reviews#fake-or-misleading-reviews
Ivan
In the US, the FTC explicitly punishes bought reviews; the EU is getting there, legislatively. In Australia, a solution might be to undersign family or friends who can sign a copy of the testimonial. Maybe?
Ben Allen 🎓
Ethics and white hat/black hat to me are two different things. Buying Private Blog Network (PBN) backlinks and paid links for your site to increase rankings is black hat but not really unethical. Making up testimonials and playing on people's trust to me is very unethical but not really white or black hat as Google's guidelines and TOS are not real relevant when it comes to what you put on your own website.
Lee
Nobody believes 'testimonial' coming off your own page anymore 😃 people tend to look for it externally.

Lisa
agree, reviews are better and off site like you said. But I think in terms of branding people like to think you trying to impress them a bit.
Ivan
You'd be surprised how well testimonials work. They are a pretty useful tool for copywriters.

Curt
Umm very unethical. Likely illegal. I would hope professional marketers would be above this practice.
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This may satisfy you: Some Tips When Making up a Homepage of an SEO Service Provider Website

Lisa
Illegal if using name and photo and signature but I think just quotes not sure why illegal but may be. But yea not good practice.
Curt » Ambalu
that’s why I said “likely” illegal.
Jeff Coseo 🎓
You would be shocked at how many people actually do this. Either on site or off.
Curt » Jeff Coseo
nope. I’m not shocked that crooked marketers are all over the place. That’s why I said I “hope” professional marketers would be above this practice.
Ben Allen 🎓
Couldn't agree more Curt. It's unnecessary and unprofessional. Like is it that hard to get clients that have good things to say about you? If so, maybe you should rethink practices like this? Just my opinion.
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Curt » Ben Allen
yep. I would never think of taking on a client that couldn’t get a few testimonials. Or needed to make stuff up.

Mikey
Why not offer a free item or service and ask for honest feedback.
Someone has a right to leave your business a bad review if you are called out and that alone can ruin your company.

Ivan » Mikey
This IS illegal, unless disclosed.
Mikey
Sell it to them for a dollar. There are 3 million ways around it
Ivan » Mikey
As I mentioned above, it's incredibly easy to get genuine testimonials and get people to sign off on them, even when they have been edited and altered. There's no need to bribe anyone here,really.

Shapira
In my perspective – it's very unethical. As I work in a landing page platform company and I get in touch with a lot of marketers – I've seen people who've done it. I even heard about people who hire people to create them fake testimonials, I find it horrible and since then I double check testimonials when I'm searching to check a product.

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