When it comes to building trust with potential customers, reviews and testimonials are among the most powerful tools at your disposal. For businesses in Cyprus and the wider Mediterranean tourism sector this is especially important as the Competition is huge.
But where should those reviews live? On your own website, or on a third-party platform like Google Reviews or Trustpilot? The answer isn’t always straightforward — and for many businesses, the smartest approach involves both.*

Option 1:

Hosting Testimonials on Your Own Website

This is the traditional approach: you gather feedback from happy customers and display it directly on your website, whether on a dedicated testimonials page, a homepage section, or individual product/service pages.

Advantages

Full creative control. You decide exactly how testimonials look, where they appear, and which ones get featured. You can match the style to your brand, highlight the quotes that resonate most, and pair them with photos, video, or case study links to make them more compelling.

You choose what to display. Unlike external platforms, your website only shows the reviews you want visitors to see. You can curate the most relevant testimonials for specific audiences — for example, featuring industry-specific feedback on a relevant service page.

No dependency on third parties. External platforms can change their algorithms, policies, or display formats at any time. With on-site testimonials, you’re not at the mercy of a platform’s decisions.

Richer formats are possible.On your own site, a testimonial can be a detailed case study, a video interview, or a before-and-after story. External platforms typically limit you to star ratings and plain text.

NO distractions from competitor links. Review platforms often show competitor listings or ads alongside your profile, potentially pulling visitors away. Your own website keeps the focus entirely on you.

Disadvantages

Credibility concerns. This is the big one. Savvy consumers know that businesses control what appears on their own website, which means on-site testimonials are often viewed with healthy scepticism. There’s no impartial third party verifying the authenticity of the feedback.

No independent verification. Without a platform to confirm that a reviewer is a genuine customer, there’s nothing stopping a business from fabricating or embellishing testimonials — and potential customers know this.

Labour-intensive to maintain. Collecting, formatting, and uploading testimonials manually takes time. It doesn’t happen automatically, so it tends to get neglected.

No SEO benefit from review schema at scale. While you can mark up on-site testimonials with structured data, you won’t benefit from the volume and freshness signals that come from an active, ongoing review stream on an established platform.

No star ratings in search results. Rich snippets showing star ratings in Google search results typically rely on external review data or structured product reviews, not general testimonial pages.

Option 2:

Using an External Review Platform

Platforms like Google Reviews, Trustpilot, Yelp, and Feefo collect and publish customer reviews independently of the business. Customers leave reviews directly on the platform, and businesses have limited ability to edit or remove them.

Advantages

Greater consumer trust.Because reviews are posted independently and the business can’t simply delete negative ones, external reviews carry significantly more weight with potential customers. People know the feedback is (largely) unfiltered.

Boosts local SEO and visibility. Google Reviews in particular have a direct impact on local search rankings. A business with a strong volume of positive Google Reviews is more likely to appear prominently in local search results and Google Maps.

Review schema and star ratings in search results. External platforms, especially Google, can surface star ratings directly in search results — a powerful visual cue that increases click-through rates.

Automated collection. Many platforms allow you to send automated review requests after a purchase or service, making it much easier to build up a consistent volume of feedback without manual effort.

Social proof at scale. Hundreds of reviews on Trustpilot or Google are far more persuasive than a handful of handpicked quotes on a website. Volume matters — it signals that many people have had a good experience, not just a few who agreed to provide a quote.

Negative reviews can build trust too. Counterintuitively, a profile with a mix of mostly positive reviews and a few critical ones (especially if you’ve responded professionally) can appear more trustworthy than a perfect score, which sometimes looks too good to be true.

Disadvantages

You can’t control the narrative. Negative, unfair, or even fraudulent reviews can appear on your profile, and removal is often difficult. A single bad review can disproportionately affect your overall rating if your total review count is low.

Platform dependency. Your reputation is tied to a platform you don’t own. If Google changes how it displays reviews, or if a platform loses popularity, your investment in building reviews there may be affected.

Risk of fake reviews — from competitors too. Review platforms are susceptible to fake reviews, and not always in your favour. Competitors can leave false negative reviews, and while platforms have systems to detect this, they’re far from foolproof.

Less design flexibility. You’re constrained by the platform’s formatting. Embedding a third-party review widget on your site can also look generic or inconsistent with your branding.

Subscription costs. Platforms like Trustpilot charge businesses for verified review collection and enhanced profile features. This is an ongoing cost to factor in.

Response required. Leaving negative reviews unaddressed looks worse than not having a platform at all. Maintaining an active presence means committing to monitoring and responding, which takes time.

Which Should You Choose?

The reality is that these two approaches work best together rather than in competition. External platforms provide the independent credibility and SEO value that on-site testimonials simply cannot replicate. On-site testimonials give you the creative control to tell a richer, more curated story — one that goes beyond a star rating.

A practical strategy for most businesses is to prioritize building reviews on Google (given its direct impact on local search visibility) and one or two sector-relevant platforms such as Trustpilot or Feefo. Simultaneously, you can pull the most compelling of those verified reviews onto your own website — this way, you get the credibility of a third-party source combined with the design control of your own platform.

Whatever approach you take, consistency is key. A profile with two reviews from three years ago is unlikely to inspire confidence. Regularly inviting customers to share their experience, and responding thoughtfully to all feedback, is what turns reviews into a genuine competitive advantage.

*The bottom line: don’t think of this as an either/or decision. Use external platforms to build credibility and discoverability, and use your own website to showcase the best of that feedback in a way that fits your brand and speaks directly to your audience.