Today I got an email from Lynn who bought “25 Ways To Improve Your Website” asking about putting a plugin on their site that puts in an affiliate disclosure. I am a big believer in running only the amount of plugins that you need. I think I run about 5-7 plugins that are essential. The more plugins you have
The plugins that you see that generate these affiliate disclosure pages are usually nothing but cookie setters or backlink builders for the affiliate that made the plugin (Those sneaky affiliates) I suggest making an affiliate disclosure page instead.
This is another great opportunity to build more trust with your website readers. You can fill the page with more things about you to get your readers more comfortable with taking out their credit card. Think of it as a second “About Us” page.
I suggest making it as personal as you can and keep any fancy lawyers words to a minimum. While I could go on all day I don't have to since Copyblogger already has a great page on affiliate disclosures. For more on this read Copybloggers thoughts.
I think the idea of using an Affiliate Disclosure Page to build trust with the audience is great as long as the affiliate isn’t relying on this to satisfy the FTC’s disclosure requirements. Everything our lawyers and some other lawyers we trust are saying is all about in-post disclosures now – close to the call to action link, pre-scroll.
I agree that the in-post disclosure is the ultimate way to make the FTC happy most bloggers have no idea what a disclosure actually is. For anyone to think a plugin is the answer is just crazy to me.