Worried that your site doesn't comply with FTC requirements for disclosures on your affiliate site?
No problem! I've got you covered with free instructions for making a quick change to your sites (see the link below).
On October 18th I received a reminder from the Amazon Associates program regarding the disclosure required on our affiliate marketing websites.
Eerily, this reminder email also mentioned FTC disclosures. Of course, you might think that having the Amazon disclosure on your website would suffice for meeting any FTC requirements - but that's not the case.
Amazon only requires that we have a simple statement on our sites and don't require a particular location of that statement.
The FTC, though, would really prefer that each affiliate link have a disclosure right next to it.
Do I think Amazon is going to check our websites for FTC disclosures? I doubt it but I certainly don't know that for sure. It's better to be safe than sorry!
Some affiliate networks don't even have any requirements. Those networks are relying on you to take appropriate precautions.
If you're promoting only ShareASale or Zazzle and have no disclosures on your site then you're very much unprotected should the FTC take a look at your site.
Now, having a disclosure next to every affiliate link seems a bit unreasonable. If you have a post with multiple products showing it would be excessive to have a disclosure next to each product's link.
Fortunately, the FTC seems to be okay with us not having that many disclosures in our posts but they DO want a very clear disclosure on posts that contain affiliate links where the disclosure is going to be seen by a reader before they click a link.
A sidebar or footer notice aren't reliable because your reader may never see those fields before getting to any affiliate links.
I know on the themes I'm using that my sidebar can be well underneath the post content if someone is looking at my site on their cell phone.
One of the best solutions is to put a generic disclosure at the very top of any post that includes affiliate link.
I've put off making this change for far too long. Today, I bit the bullet and set up a disclosure notice to show at the top of every post on my affiliate marketing sites.
I used a free plugin to get this done that allowed me to customize the text and appearance of these disclosures.
I created a post on my website with step-by-step instructions on how I did this in case any of you want to do the same.
READ THE INSTRUCTIONS HERE:
If you've already done this then you get a high-five from me! If you haven't, I promise it's a fairly painless process and I seriously doubt putting this disclosure at the top of your posts will have any negative impact on your sales.
Thanks!
Sincerely,
Erica Stone
erica@extremereviewer.com
