Build Your Author Website: More Specific Disclosures for Your Website

Posted February 15, 2024 by kddidit in Author Resources, Building Your Own Website

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DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer. Seek out a lawyer for advice on any of the below. KD Did It assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions in the content of this site. The information contained in this site is provided on an “as is” basis with no guarantees of completeness, accuracy, usefulness, or timeliness . . . although I do my best.

The Federal Trade Commission of the United States (FTC) takes disclosure very seriously, and so should you. You do NOT want to deal with legal problems. And the costs of it!!

To recap from “Pages Behind the Scenes of Your Website“, a disclosure is when a blogger tells their viewers when there is a conflict of interest in any post, course, etc., for your viewers that relies on your expertise and advice. In my case, a conflict comes up when I provide a link to a store for a book I’m reviewing or for one that I refer to in my resources. I’m hoping to figure out how to work the affiliate ad side of things one day — which will be another conflict of interest.

Because the FTC is so serious, there are subcategories of disclosures:

Affiliate Disclosures – any time you offer up something to your visitors, whether it’s a freebie for signing up for your newsletter, subscribing to your blog, including ads on your site or links which your viewer can click to get something (purchase, gift, etc.)
Guest Post Disclosures – any time you have a guest writer who writes an article for your blog — you do not want to take on any disclosure issues as a result of their work
Sponsored Disclosures – any time someone offers to compensate you for writing a post, article, review, etc., you must be transparent about it, tell your visitors that you’re getting something for talking about this topic.
- Compensation can be in any form, including anything on your website — a link, an image, an article, a book, etc.

Continue to protect yourself by making these disclosures obvious, placing them as close as possible to the post for which you’re being sponsored.

Include links to/from your various specific disclosures to your various more general policies. You’ll have noticed that most companies include links to their Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, etc., in the footer of their websites.

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Exploring More . . .

You may want to also look at more possibilities in Building Your Author Website“, “Outline Your Website“, “The Front End of Your Website“, and “Pages Behind the Scenes of Your Website“.

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Build Your Author Website is . . .

. . . an opportunity to do a bit more with your author’s website or blog and have some fun with it as well as getting a look at building it from the ground up with a comprehensive listing of the pages you’ll need . . . all while learning something about HTML (hypertext markup language) and CSS (cascading style sheets) — the easy way, lol.

If you found this post on “More Specific Disclosures for Your Website” interesting, consider subscribing to KD Did It, if you’d like to track this post for future updates.

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Specific Disclosures
Part of Web Building: Behind the Scenes
Definition: Pages that more specifically address information related to any conflicts of interest that may affect what you’re saying or writing. POST CONTENTS: Affiliate Disclosure Guest Post Disclosure Sponsored Disclosure
Affiliate Disclosure	Definition: A notice placed near an affiliate link or a product recommendation that provides a brief definition of affiliate marketing and lets the viewer know that you are going to be paid if they buy a product through that link.
Return to top or post contents	Viewers must be informed if you plan to promote someone else’s content on your blog with the basic principles of advertising law applying: Advertising must be truthful and not misleading Advertisers must have evidence to back up their claims (“substantiation”) Advertisements cannot be unfair (according to the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. § 45(n), and the FTC’s Unfairness Policy Statement, an advertisement. or business practice is unfair if it causes or is likely to cause substantial consumer injury that consumers. could not reasonably avoid and that is not outweighed by the benefit to consumers or competition) The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a set of guidelines that must be used to create transparency for your viewers (you can get in trouble without disclosing this info): The affiliate disclosure must be clear and conspicuous AND as close to the item being promoted as possible — ideally, the closer the disclosure is to the claim to which it relates and/or put it in your footer, at the top of your page/post, or in the sidebar Include a link to the affiliate section on your disclosure page If space is limited, incorporate the disclosure within the ad The notice must be displayed before the consumer “adds the item to their shopping cart” Consider repeating the disclosure before the actual purchase to be sure the consumer has the knowledge The disclosure cannot be distracting If making an audio claim, use an audio disclosure message, the volume and cadence of the message must be adequate The language must be understandable to the intended audience If a hyperlink links to the disclosure, it must be properly labeled and noticeable The link must be obvious and the styling used consistently Placed as close as possible to the ad/info Monitor the click-through rates and any other information about consumer use — make changes if necessary Ideally, a viewer shouldn’t have to scroll away from the ad to find the disclosure If scrolling is necessary, use text or visual cues to encourage consumers to scroll to view the disclosure
	The author of this [publication, presentation, or poster] receives funding from [Entity] which is developing products related to research described in this [publication, presentation or poster]. In addition, the author serves as a consultant to [Entity] and receives compensation for these services. Niall Roche provides an example of an Affiliate Disclosure in the Ad in “12 Affiliate Disclosure Examples & Best Practices for Bloggers in 2024”, via AuthorityHacker. The author of this [publication, presentation, or poster] receives research funding from [Entity] which is developing products related to research described in this [publication, presentation or poster]. In addition, the author serves as a consultant to [Entity] and receives compensation for these services. Important Disclosure: The content provided does not consider your particular circumstances and does not constitute personal advice. Some of the products promoted are from our affiliate partners from whom we receive compensation. `Read More` Sites with examples include: WP Barista Sprout Flowers Kinsta
	Write It Simple
	Rule: Keep the disclosure simple with short sentences to make it very readable. Describe and clarify what that affiliate link is about.
	Some of these links may be affiliate links, and I will earn a small percentage, if you should buy it. It does not affect the price you pay. Note: This post contains several affiliate links. Read our `full affiliate disclosure` policy here. Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links, from which at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.
	Affiliate Disclosure Placement
	Rule: Your affiliate disclosure can be placed IN your POST at the top or bottom, within the post itself, or in the sidebar.
	Imogen Beech displays Michelle’s placement (from Making Sense of Cents) at the top of the post, via Breezy. Placement in a Footer, via TermsFeed An example of Placement in a Sidebar, via Indeed.com.
	Add Affiliate Disclosure
	There are three ways to add an affiliate disclosure:
	Manually place your affiliate disclosure on your post Use a plugin Add it to the header of your post Source: Dar, Diggity
	Some affiliate link disclosure plugins include: Easy Affiliate Links, a free and a paid plugin version WP Affiliate Disclosure, a free and a paid plugin version Auto Affiliate Links, free Easy Azon, a free plugin for Amazon affiliations Affiliates Manager, a plugin with a free and paid version that integrates with a number of popular e-commerce solutions Thirsty Affiliates paid version
Guest Post Disclosure	Definition: A notice placed near a guest post that shows transparency to readers, and it also helps to avoid any confusion about who the author of the post is.
Return to top or post contents	Do include a line that clearly identifies the post as a guest post. NOTE: Some search engines may view undisclosed guest posting as a violation of their guidelines, which could negatively impact your website’s rankings. Consider having a guest writer sign a disclosure form (.pages or .docx are automatic downloads) to protect yourself.
	“This is a guest post by [Author’s Name]” “This article was written by [Author’s Name] on behalf of [Your Website/Blog].”
	Suggestion: You may want to include a short biography of the guest author and provide a brief description of their expertise and background. This benefits your website’s reputation by demonstrating that you are committed to ethical practices and high-quality content.
	Kathy Davie is an editor, author, and artist with degrees in Technical Writing & Editing, Digital Media, and History. A huge believer in knowledge being power, Kathy loves to share her knowledge of editing, proofreading, and research on information useful for writers. Hmmm, I’m liking the circle for the photo in those below . . . Reynoso’s Guest Author Bio by Rebecca Reynoso, via LinkedIn. James Parsons included Kes Thygesen’s bio in his post “The Ultimate Guide to Writing a Guest Blogging Author Bio”, via TopicFinder.
Sponsored Disclosure	Definition: A notice that informs the reader that you received compensation — money or goods — for the post(s).
	You must provide transparency to the reader letting them know there may be a conflict of interest. You have two options: Simple Sponsorship Disclosure – state that you received compensation from χχ Honest Opinions Sponsorship Disclosure – state that you received compensation from χχ BUT that the post is your honest opinion Studies indicate that readers respond favorably to the “honest opinions” statement. Source: Hwang
	Disclosure: I have received compensation for this review, however all opinions are my own. “This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. This blog does not accept any form of cash advertising, sponsorship, or paid topic insertions. However, we will and do accept and keep free products, services, travel, event tickets, and other forms of compensation from companies and organizations. The compensation received will never influence the content, topics or posts made in this blog. All advertising is in the form of advertisements generated by a third party ad network. Those advertisements will be identified as paid advertisements. The owner(s) of this blog is not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the blog owners. If we claim or appear to be experts on a certain topic or product or service area, we will only endorse products or services that we believe, based on our expertise, are worthy of such endorsement. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider. This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.” Source: Always

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C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which website issues are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix the . . . and we’ll all benefit!

Satisfy your curiosity about other Working Your Website posts in its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Word Confusions, and Writing Ideas and Resources.

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Resources for More Specific Disclosures for Your Website

Some of these links may be affiliate links, and I will earn a small percentage, if you should buy it. It does not affect the price you pay.

“Author Disclosure Form.” Journal of Military Veteran and Family Health. n.d. Accessed 5 Feb 2024. <https://jmvfh.utpjournals.press/pb-assets/utoronto/jmvfh/JMVFH-Author-Disclosure-Form.pdf>.

Dar, Usman. “Affiliate Disclosures: How to Write One for Your WordPress Site (with Examples).” Cloudways. 1 July 2021. Accessed 2 Feb 2024. <https://www.cloudways.com/blog/affiliate-disclosures/>.

Diggity, Matt. “Affiliate Link Disclosure Examples | 11 Unique Approaches.” Diggity Marketing. n.d. Accessed 5 Feb 2024. <https://diggitymarketing.com/learn-affiliate-marketing/affiliate-link-disclosure-examples/>.

“Disclosure Examples.” American Economic Association. n.d. Accessed 5 Feb 2024. <https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/policies/disclosure-policy/disclosure-examples>.

“Disclosure Statement.” Always a Lesson. 6 Nat 2012. Accessed 5 Feb 2024. <https://alwaysalesson.com/disclosure-statement/>.

Gustafson, Aaron. “When Your Code Has to Work: Complying with Legal Mandates.” Smashing Magazine. 2 Mar 2017. Accessed 19 Jan 2024. <https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2017/03/code-complying-with-legal-mandates/>.

Hwang, Y. and S.-H Jeong. “This is a Sponsored Blog Post, but All Opinions are My Own: The Effects of Sponsorship Disclosure on Responses to Sponsored Blog Posts.” ResearchGate. n.d. Accessed 5 Feb 2024. <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301705747_This_is_a_sponsored_blog_post_but_all_opinions_are_my_own_The_effects_of_sponsorship_disclosure_on_responses_to_sponsored_blog_posts>.

Slack, Chris. “Disclaimers Versus Disclosures.” Free Privacy Policy. Last updated 1 July 2022. Accessed 24 Jan 2024. <https://www.freeprivacypolicy.com/blog/disclaimers-versus-disclosures/>.

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