How to create and customize a Testimonial Carousel ~ a win-win marketing tool!

If you’re an entrepreneur selling a product and/or service and looking for marketing ideas to showcase your work on your blog or website, this post is for you! ♥

When I discovered the Testimonial feature with Kadence Blocks – Gutenberg Page Builder Toolkit Plugin By Kadence WP, I was eager to put it to use. The customization options make it the most versatile Testimonial feature I’ve found in six years of blogging.

Testimonials are fantastic tools for promoting a product or service, but it turns into a win-win when we can promote others in the process.

Using a Testimonial Carousel, I’m delighted to share lovely reviews I’ve received for my first collection of poetry, The Heart’s Journey Home, while promoting fellow authors, as well. It’s a win-win, my friends!

In today’s post, I’m setting out to introduce this little gem ~ Testimonials by Kadence Blocks. ♥

You can download the Kadence Blocks Plugin here. Or visit their website below.

Kadence Blocks – Gutenberg Page Builder Toolkit By Kadence WP

Included in this post:

• How to add and fully customize a Testimonial Carousel using Gutenberg and Kadence Blocks.
• Sharing Testimonials (book reviews) while promoting fellow authors (my favourite approach!).
• Linking each Testimonial to the entire review and to the reviewer’s/author’s Amazon Author profile page.
• Adding the Testimonial Carousel as a Reusable Block using Gutenberg.

The Gutenberg editor has so many awesome features, but it gets better. There are numerous Plugins we can use with Gutenberg that offer amazing options to create engaging content. AND they are free and super easy to use.

In previous blog posts, I introduced features I discovered using the WordPress Plugin Ultimate Addons for Gutenberg. You’re most welcome to check out the posts here ~ Blogging Tips.

♥ The Heart’s Journey Home ♥

Creating a Testimonial Carousel

Adding a Block

First, we add a Block. If you’re not sure how to add Blocks in Gutenberg, you’re most welcome to pop by my previous post ~ Getting Started with Gutenberg ~ A How-To Guide for Creating Engaging Blog Posts with Gutenberg.

If you added the plugin, you’ll see it listed in your Block Categories, as shown in the image below.

Let’s open Kadence Blocks.

When we open Kadence Blocks, we’ll see a variety of options. For this tutorial, we’re using the Option ~ Testimonials.

Once we add the Testimonial Block, we’ll see the Testimonial template like below. We can Select Initial Style from here or from the options on the right.

To the right, we see a list of elements/tabs we’ll be using. Each element/tab has its own drop-down menu.

If you don’t see it, click on the Settings tab on the right of the Publish tab. Then click on Block.

Under the Layout tab, we can choose Grid or Carousel.

We can browse through Testimonial Style and choose our preferred style.

A Testimonial Template will display, as shown in the image below.

I selected a Carousel Layout and Bubble Style Testimonial.

We can set the number of Testimonial Items and Columns. I set my Testimonial Items to 10 and Columns to 1.

In the image below, you can see my completed Testimonial Carousel.

Let’s look at the other elements on the right to further customize the design of our Testimonial.

Carousel Settings

Under the Carousel Settings tab, we can customize the Autoplay Speed and Transition Speed.

I set my Autoplay to 7000 and Transition to 2000.

We can set the Slides to Scroll, Arrow Style and Dot Style.

Container Settings

Under the Container Settings tab, we can fully customize the look of the Container with a Colour Background and Border. I decided to leave mine white/clear.

Icon Settings

Under the Icon Settings tab, we have so many options to customize our testimonials. When we turn on Show Top Icon, we’ll see our options.

We can choose our Icon, Icon Size, and Icon Colour.

Because I’m using quotes/snippets of reviews from my readers, I selected the Quote Icon.

In the image below, you can see all the Icon options we have access to. Awesome!

We can customize the Icon Background Colour and Icon Border Colour.

Title Settings

Under the Title Settings tab, we have the option to Show Title. If we’d like to show the Title, we can turn it on here and see the customization settings.

We can select a Heading Style and set the Font Size.

We can further customize the Title with Text Transform and select a Font Family.

Rating Settings

Under the Rating Settings, we can turn on the Star Rating and customize the Colour and Size. We customize the number of stars via the Individual Settings tab, but we must turn on the Star Rating here. We’ll cover Individual Settings in this post.

Content Settings

Under the Content Settings tab, we can turn on the Show Content (ie. review snippet) and customize the Content Colour and Font Size. I kept mine simple using black and Font Size of 16.

We can further customize the Content with Text Transform and select a Font Family

Media Settings

Under the Media Settings, we can turn on the Show Media and customize the Colour and Size.

In the image below, you can see the Media Icon next to Micki Pelusa’s name. I selected the Amazon Icon. The Media Icons are selected via the Individual Settings tab, but we must turn it on here.

In the image below, you can see I selected the Pen Media Icon.

We’ll cover these via Individual Settings.

Name Settings

Under the Name Settings, we can turn on the Show Name and customize the Font Colour and Font Size.

We can further customize the Name Setting with Text Transform and select a Font Family.

Occupation Settings

Under the Occupation Settings, we can turn on the Show Occupation and customize the Font Colour and Font Size. I added Author for Micki.

We can further customize the Occupation Title with Text Transform and select a Font Family.

Container Shadow

Under the Container Shadow tab, we can Enable Shadow and customize Shadow Colour, Blur, Spread, and Offset. I added a light grey with a Shadow Blur set to 14.

Individual Settings

Under the Individual Settings tab, we can see the customization of each Testimonial. This is where we select the Media Icon and set the Star Rating for each Testimonial, as referenced earlier.

Every Testimonial is listed under the Individual Settings tab, as displayed in the image below.

In the image below, you can see I selected the Pen Icon, set the Icon Size to 20, and added a custom colour.

In the image below, you can see the various Media Icons we can choose from.

Directly below the Icon Colour, you’ll see the Rating Star Scale. The Rating Scale is from 1-5 Stars. We can use the slider, the up and down arrows, or enter the number in the box.

Adding a Link to the Review and the Author’s Name

We can easily link every Title to the entire review and link the reviewer/author to their Amazon profile, website, etc. This is a fantastic way to promote fellow authors!

To create a hyperlink, we highlight our text. Then click the hyperlink option, which is located at the top of the editor.

We paste or type the relevant URL address into the window and turn on Open in New Tab. We just need to click on it to activate. We’ll know it’s on when it turns blue. Then we click on the left arrow to Apply the hyperlink.

Adding a Reusable Block

When we’ve completed the design of our Testimonials, we can save it as a Reusable Block and easily insert it with other content, such as a promotion for our books via blog posts and static pages.

Another gem in Gutenberg is the function of creating Reusable Blocks. For Blocks that we’ll use frequently, this is a fantastic time-saver.

To add a Reusable Block, we just click on the three dots in the editor and choose Add to Reusable Block.

We’ll need to do this while we’re in the Block we’d like to Reuse. Then all we have to do is give it a name for future reference.

Once done, we’ll see it listed in our Reusable Block Category.

And that’s a wrap!

I hope this post proves helpful and inspires you to use Testimonials as a marketing and promotional tool and resource. I love the versatility of the Testimonial feature with Kadence Blocks – Gutenberg Page Builder Toolkit Plugin By Kadence WP, and I was eager to put it to use. It’s a fantastic promotional tool for our work, but it’s also a wonderful way to promote fellow authors, as well. Cheers to that!

Have an idea you’d like to share? Please feel free to share in the comments below.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.

Until next time… happy connecting and creating, my friends!

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Blogging Essentials Guide

After seven years of blogging, I thought I’d put together a Resource Guide with a list of essential tools and resources I use in hopes that it may prove helpful to fellow bloggers – newbies and/or not-so-newbies alike. After all, we’re always learning in this form of engagement. ♥

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