This post includes affiliate links. This means I recommend products that I have used and I get a commission if you buy through one link on my website (at no additional cost to you). I only recommend products I've used and I've found useful.

When promote products or use affiliate marketing in your blog, you need to make sure you include affiliate disclaimers in any page and blog post where there is an affiliate link. It is a legal requirement in most countries and if you use your blog to promote products; it is something that you must consider. This blog post will give you a quick overview of affiliate disclaimers and show you how to set up affiliate disclaimers automatically in your blog posts.

An affiliate disclosure is a statement that informs your readers that your content includes affiliate links and that you get paid if they purchase through your link.

My affiliate disclosure is this:

‘This post includes affiliate links. This means I recommend products that I have used and I get a commission if you buy through one link on my website (at no additional cost to you). I only recommend products I’ve used and I’ve found useful.’

Why you need an affiliate disclosure

Law requires affiliate disclosures in most countries. Affiliate marketing is regulated by the FTC in the US, GPDR in the EU and different other official organisations in different countries.

Remember that even if you located outside the US and the EU, you are likely to have some readers from those countries and hence you need to make sure you have an appropriate affiliate disclaimer statement.

What you need to consider

Affiliate disclosure statement need to be clear to any reader and appear in a location where they are easily readable by all consumers that access the site. If you include affiliate links, have a product review or somehow recommend a product where you have received any benefit, you need to include a disclaimer within each page in your website that includes an affiliate link. 

The following guidelines need to be followed:

– Use clear language that will be easy to understand by anyone.

– Frequent disclosure statements: An affiliate disclosure statement needs to be added to every page where there is an affiliate link.

– Easy to read: avoid including the disclosure with a font type, size or colour that makes it difficult to read. Make sure that all your readers can easily see and read the disclaimer.

– Place it where every reader will see it: it’s not enough to add the statement at the end of the blog post, where some readers may miss it, or in a pop-up that readers could ignore. The best place to add it is at the beginning of the blog post where every reader is most likely to see it. 

The FTC has more detailed guidelines for affiliate disclaimers, which you can find in their .com disclosures document.

How to automatically add them to blog posts

If you use affiliate marketing to earn money through your blog, you probably have affiliate links in all or most of your blog posts. The easiest way to ensure that you add an affiliate disclaimer at the beginning of every page is to use a plugin that will automatically add the disclaimer. I use “FMTC Affiliate Disclosure”. 

Once you install and activate the plugin, you need to go to the settings (under Settings > Affiliate disclosure) to update the affiliate disclosure statement that will appear in every blog page:

The main advantages of this approach FMTC Affiliate Disclosure are:

1 – You don’t have to remember to add the affiliate disclaimer at the beginning of every post.

2 – If you change your affiliate disclaimer, you can easily do it through the plugin and it will automatically be updated in all your blog posts.

Using the plugin makes affiliate disclosures easy to implement across your blog, but you need to remember to include them in other pages outside your blog if appropriate. For example, if you have a resources page or similar pages with affiliate links, you will need to add the disclosure manually, as the plugin only adds the disclosure in your blog posts.

Finally, sometimes it’s easy to see an affiliate disclosure as a negative, but you are letting your readers know that you are earning money promoting products. Transparency is key to earn trust with your readers, so being open and clear about your affiliate marketing will help you improve your relationship with your readers.

If you’ve found this post useful and are looking for more tips to use WordPress, check out the following posts:

9 free essential WordPress plugins you need to install

How to use WordPress tags and categories