Stars, user counts and logos: a trust check for your launch page
When I read a freshly launched product the way a buyer would, the trust strip under the hero is one of the first things I check. Stars, a user count, a row of logos, "Featured on". Buyers check it too, and they often check it against the one place you don't control: the store listing, the launch page, the company's own LinkedIn. When the two don't match, the badge that was meant to build trust becomes the reason someone leaves.
None of these are bugs in the code. They usually come from a template, a placeholder that nobody replaced, or a number that was true on launch day and stopped being true. Below are six versions I keep finding (product names removed), what each one costs you, and a 10-minute check for your own page.
1A star rating with no reviews behind it
The most direct version: the hero says "5.0 rating on the App Store" or "4.9 on Shopify", and the listing it points to says "No reviews yet". I've seen this on an app launched the same week, where the badge was clearly part of the landing template. A merchant who is about to install clicks through to the listing first. That click is the last step before the decision, and it lands on a zero.
How to check
For every rating on your site, open the listing it refers to in a private window and compare the number and the review count. If the listing has no reviews yet, take the badge down until it does, or replace it with something you can show, like "launched this week, early users welcome".
2A rating that lives only in the page code
Some page templates ship with review markup for search engines: a block of structured data that says the product has a 5.0 rating from 48 reviews. Nobody sees it on the page, so nobody notices it. Google's structured data guidelines expect a rating in the markup to be visible on the page and to come from real reviews, and markup that misleads can get a site a manual action in Search Console. It's the kind of thing a template adds and a founder never reads.
How to check
Open your page source and search for aggregateRating and reviewCount. If they are there, the numbers must match reviews a visitor can actually see. If you have no reviews yet, delete the block. Google's Rich Results Test will show you what it reads from the page.
3User counts and live activity that the product can't back
"Trusted by 10,000+ makers" on a product that launched on Monday. A live feed of "someone just signed up" that repeats the same five names. A leaderboard pre-filled by the founder so the page wouldn't look empty on day one. The intention is understandable, an empty room looks bad. But visitors notice faster than founders expect, and one public comment saying "these numbers are fake" does more damage than an empty room ever would. I watched one founder get called a scam for exactly this, and the fix that worked was the honest one: zero real users shown as zero, with a clear "be the first" message.
How to check
For every number on the page, ask where it comes from today. If the answer is "I typed it" or "seed data", either remove it or label it plainly as an example. A small true number ("42 people signed up this week") reads better than a big round one.
4Logo walls and "used by teams at"
A row of well-known company logos under "used by teams at", when one person from that company once signed up for the free plan, or nobody did and the row came with the template. Big logos invite exactly the people who will check: buyers at mid-size companies who can ask a colleague. Using a company's logo without its permission can also bring a polite but firm email from its legal team.
How to check
For each logo, can you name the person or team who uses the product and say you have permission to show it? If not, take the logo down. "Used by solo founders and small teams" with no logos at all is fine at launch.
5Testimonials nobody can trace
Three glowing quotes with first names, stock photos and job titles like "Founder, SaaS company". Sometimes they are placeholder text from the template, sometimes they came from friends during the beta. Either way, a quote nobody can trace doesn't persuade, and a stock photo that shows up on five other landing pages is easy to find with a reverse image search. In the US, the FTC's rule on fake reviews and testimonials, in force since October 2024, also covers made-up quotes.
How to check
Keep only quotes from real people who agreed to be quoted, with their real name and, ideally, a link to their product or profile. If you have none yet, leave the section out. One real quote beats three invented ones.
6Launch badges that outlived the launch
"#1 Product of the Day" when the product finished fifth. "Featured on" with the logo of a site that only listed it in a directory. A launch badge with a live widget that now shows a low upvote count from months ago. These are smaller than the other five, but they sit right next to the price, and a visitor who catches one stretched claim starts reading every other line with suspicion.
How to check
Click every badge on your page and check that the page behind it says what the badge says. Replace "#1" with the place you actually got, or with a plain "Launched on" link.
7The 10-minute check
Open your landing page in a private window. Next to it, open every outside page your trust strip refers to: the store listing, the launch page, the review site. Go through the strip left to right and, for each item, find the same fact on the outside page. Then view the page source and search for aggregateRating. Anything you can't match, remove or relabel today. Repeat after every redesign, because new templates bring their own badges.
Want a second pair of eyes before launch day?
The checks above are all visible from outside. What isn't: whether the signup email arrives, whether one user can see another user's data, and whether the payment and the receipt match what the pricing page promised.
Run the free outside scan See what a full audit coversTrust claims, pricing and the money path are part of the manual checks in a Pre-Launch Audit, done with real test accounts and screen recordings of every step. More guides: All guides.