A LinkedIn recommendation is one of the most under-used assets a business has. Someone took the time to write, in their own words, why working with you was worth it — and then it landed on a profile page that your prospects will almost never see. The quote is genuine, it is specific, and it already carries the person's real name and title. All it needs is a new home.
But you cannot simply copy the text onto your homepage and move on. A LinkedIn recommendation was written for LinkedIn's context, and its author gave consent for that context, not for a testimonial banner on your pricing page. This guide walks through moving it across correctly: securing the right permission, sharpening the quote without distorting it, and attributing it in a way a skeptical visitor will trust.
Why a LinkedIn recommendation is worth moving
Recommendations already clear the two bars most testimonials struggle with.
- Credibility is built in. The quote is tied to a real, verifiable person with a public profile, a photo, a job title, and a company. That is far stronger than "Sarah M., happy customer."
- The words are authentic. The author chose them freely, in their own voice, with no template in front of them. That authenticity is exactly what a fabricated-sounding testimonial lacks.
The only thing holding it back is location. Your job is to relocate the proof to where a hesitating buyer will actually encounter it.
Step 1: Get explicit permission before you reuse it
Public does not mean licensed. A recommendation being visible on LinkedIn gives you no automatic right to reproduce it in your marketing, and reusing it silently risks both an awkward relationship and, depending on your jurisdiction, a consent problem.
Send a short, low-friction message:
Hi [Name] — the recommendation you left me on LinkedIn genuinely meant a lot. I would love to feature it as a testimonial on my website, with your name, title, and company. Are you comfortable with that? Happy to send you the exact wording and placement first.
This does three things: it thanks them again, it names precisely what you want to do, and it offers a review step that reassures anyone cautious about how their name will be used. Keeping a written record of that yes matters later — see how to keep a record of testimonial consent so you can prove it later.
If the person has since changed companies or roles, ask which title they would prefer to display. Attribution should reflect who they are now, or who they were when they worked with you — never a stale mismatch that invites doubt.
Step 2: Tighten the quote without changing its meaning
LinkedIn recommendations often ramble a little — a warm opening, some context, the substance, a friendly sign-off. For a website, you want the substance. Editing is allowed; distorting is not.
Safe edits:
- Trim the throat-clearing. Cut "I have worked with many vendors over the years, and..." and lead with the concrete claim.
- Pull the strongest sentence to the front. If the specific result — "cut our onboarding time in half" — is buried in the third paragraph, make it the opening line.
- Remove filler like "highly recommend to anyone" that adds no information.
Unsafe edits:
- Inventing or inflating specifics. If they said "faster," do not upgrade it to "40% faster."
- Stitching two unrelated points into one sentence that implies a claim they never made.
- Changing the tone so a measured endorsement reads as a rave.
When you have a tightened version, send it back for the sign-off you promised in Step 1. A one-line "does this still feel accurate to you?" protects the relationship and the quote's integrity at once.
Step 3: Attribute it so a stranger would believe it
The power of a LinkedIn recommendation is that it is traceable to a real person. Preserve that.
- Full name, title, and company. Anonymous quotes lose most of their weight; a named professional whose profile a visitor could look up carries it.
- A photo, ideally their real headshot, used with permission. A face makes the proof harder to dismiss as invented.
- A link, where appropriate. Linking the name to their LinkedIn profile lets a genuinely skeptical buyer verify the quote themselves — the strongest trust signal you can offer.
Step 4: Place it where the claim it supports lives
A relocated recommendation only works if it lands beside the doubt it answers. A quote about responsive support belongs near your support promise; a quote about ROI belongs near the price. Do not file it on a lonely testimonials page — match proof to claim. For the full map of where quotes earn their keep, see where to display testimonials on your website.
A quick checklist
- Asked for explicit permission to reuse the recommendation on your site.
- Confirmed the name, title, and company to display.
- Trimmed to the strongest, most specific lines without altering meaning.
- Sent the edited version back for a final sign-off.
- Attributed with full name, title, company, and ideally a photo or profile link.
- Placed the quote beside the claim it supports, not on an isolated page.
A LinkedIn recommendation is proof someone already gave you freely. Moving it onto your site — with consent intact and the wording sharpened — turns a quiet compliment on a profile page into a conversion asset working for you around the clock.