Adding certifications and awards to your website can attract government entities and other business partners — here are our tips and best practices for adding certifications to your website.
One of our favorite clients, JDA Promotional Solutions, just received a coveted certification from the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). We love working with JDA, and we’re happy to see them recognized for their hard work and leadership.
We’re also pumped to see that JDA has added the WBENC certification logo to their website. Why is this important? Because it helps establish credibility with certain clients, of course. But adding a certification seal like this can also help JDA make money because it shows that they’re doing much more than paying lip service to the idea of workplace diversity. That can make JDA attractive to government entities and other business partners who also may want their partnerships to be more diversified. Adding certifications to a website is something we recommend to our other clients, too. Here’s why:
Why Add Certifications & Associations to Your Website
- Make your business more attractive for certain B2B and government contracts
- Advertise your associations and awards
- Easily communicate your credentials to clients and potential clients
Thinking about adding awards and certifications to your own website? Great idea! Here’s a list of our tips.
Don’t have too many — make them count.
If you clutter your website with several certifications, none of them really stand out. Choose the most important ones to list on your website. If you really want to list dozens of certifications, think about creating a special page for your awards and certifications and picking the best two or three to add to your home page.
Get a hi-res image of the award or certification for your site.
Follow the instructions for downloading, or contact the organization that issued your certification for a high-resolution image. You definitely want to emphasize clarity and quality with your image.
Be sure your certification is approved before adding it to your site.
This seems basic, but it’s very important. Many organizations with coveted certifications have very strict rules about when and how their certifications can be displayed on your website. Follow those rules carefully, or communicate them well to your web designer to be sure you’re working within the appropriate guidelines of the organization.
Where do you put the certification?
That depends on the accomplishment, its importance, and on the design of your website. It’s common to put certifications in a sidebar or at the bottom of the page (like JDA has done), but ask your web designer to find out what’s best.
If you’re getting a new website design, send certifications early.
The best way to be sure your awards are showcased well is to send them to your web designer early with clear directions about how they should be used and exactly how important they are to you. This way, your awards and certifications can be integrated into your web design organically.
Link to the issuing organization or to a blog with more information.
If potential customers are curious about what your certification means, help them find out! Be sure the image for the certification or award is clickable — you might link it directly to the organization, or you might want to keep the traffic directed to your own website. If that’s the case, write a blog post about the certification and what you had to do to earn it, and link the certification to that post instead. (Be sure to check the guidelines for the award or certification first; they might require that you link to their site instead of to your own blog.)
Congratulations again to JDA on their WBENC award — we love working with you, and we’re so proud of you!
