If you’re planning on making money from your site, you need to have a disclosure policy. The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) released guidelines for bloggers regarding endorsements and advertisements. You NEED to have clear disclosures on your blog per the law. A disclosure also shows that you’re being honest with your readers.
By having a disclosure policy you’re protecting yourself and your brand.
What You Need To Know About Disclosures On Your Blog
Make a dedicated disclosure policy page and be sure that a link to your disclosure policy page is placed in a visible spot on your blog (on your homepage footer, header, or sidebar).
Not sure what to include in your disclosure policy? You can head on over to http://disclosurepolicy.org where you can generate a disclosure policy within minutes. You can also write your own if you prefer.
If you choose to write your own disclosure, here are a few helpful things to include…
- The reason for the disclosure policy (FTC guidelines, transparency)
- Mention your blog and how you make money
- Talk about your ethics (trust, honesty, integrity)
A disclosure page is not a replacement for disclosing on individual sponsored posts. You’ll need to add a disclosure/disclaimer to the beginning of any of your posts where you talk about a product or service that you were paid to talk about, were given free products to talk about, or any post which contains affiliate links. The disclosure must come before any links to a sponsor’s site. If the post contains affiliate links, your disclaimer should be placed in close proximity to the affiliate link.
Many bloggers will post a link to their disclosure page at the beginning of their posts saying something like, “This post may contain affiliate links. Read the full disclosure here.” or “This is a sponsored post. I was compensated, but all opinions are my own. See my disclosure policy here.”
Disclosures that aren’t made until the end of your post, after you’ve already inserted affiliate or sponsored links in the content may be construed as misleading and do not meet FTC guidelines.
Other Helpful Pages To Include On Your Blog
Privacy Policy: If you intend to collect any personal information (you should be by building your email list) then add a privacy policy to your site. It should cover the basics of how you will use the list, etc… Basically it’ll reassure people you will not be spamming them or giving their information out to 3rd parties. If you collect any information at all on your site from your visitors you need this page.
Copyright Information: You work hard on your blog’s content, right? So you don’t want anyone to steal it, correct? A copyright statement clearly lays out what’s okay and what isn’t when it comes to others sharing the pictures and text from your blog.
*Please note I am not a lawyer nor do I claim to have expertise in this area, so if you have specific questions, visit the FTC report.
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