Writing Tips at GarySpeer.com

It just occurred to me that I should point you to a couple of resources you can use if you wish to create a disclosure policy for your blog or website. Take a look at mine, if you wish. It may not work for you, and it may have far more or less than you want. But it’ll give you some example of what I’m doing. You’ll find it linked to as “Privacy” in the navigation links of this website.

If you look at the last paragraph in that “Privacy Statement,” you’ll find specific discussion of advertising and third-party products and/or product reviews. I don’t know whether or not my “Privacy” page does all it should or could, but it sounds right to me. If I advertise on this site or others anything from writing supplies to acne medicine, my statement urges site visitors to be aware that I may (I HOPE anyway) be making some money from that and they SHOULD always check out any ad claims on the site and do “due diligence” before buying anything.

Pretty common sense stuff, I would think.

The big issue, in my opinion, is not specific disclaimers or privacy statements. The big issue is that almost no one coming to a website really reads and understands privacy policies or disclaimers anyway.

On my affiliate marketing sites, all of my “About” and “Privacy” pages emphasize that I am NOT a merchant, but a “merchant partner” who directs site visitors to merchants via links on my pages. But I still get several dozen messages a year from people wanting to know whether I stock such and such an item. I’ve gotten customer service type questions from other folks.

Anyway, do with this information what you will. If you’re writing a blog or other website content trying to make a few bucks online, you need to try to get all the details sorted out and be compliant with Uncle Sam (or whatever affectionate terms you have for the government where you live).

I just searched through my posts on this site, and I cannot find anything related to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines that were issued a few months ago about bloggers and others who use customer testimonials on their websites.

There’s a lot of confusion going around about the details. And, before you take anything I say here as “authoritative,” let me be clear that this is simply my OPINION, my understanding. If you wish to be sure about this for your own online writing/blogging/websites, please go to the FTC’s website, read the regulations for yourself, and if you are really concerned, consult a lawyer. Don’t take my opinion or advice here as authoritative.

As I understand the FTC policy, they simply want various internet marketers and/or affiliate marketers and others to be honest and clear about testimonials used on their sites. In other words, if you have 15 real people giving their own, legitimate testimonials for your product(s) — the best tent poles ever created, the greatest bicycle I’ve ever owned, all-time greatest weight loss success stories, best 1934 Ford mufflers available in the world, etc. — they 1) must be real, and, 2) you must make it clear that “results will vary” and these testimonials are not typical, and, 3) you must indicate that you have been paid or may be paid or will be paid in money, free products, or free services for all this.

At least, that’s how I THINK it works. But, God bless our wonderful government and all the bureaucrats therein, I may be very wrong. So remember, this is just MY opinion or my understanding. Don’t rely on that if the feds come after you.

One of the questions constantly debated by those who write for the Internet is this: Should you write content and put it on other websites, or should you focus your time on writing content for your own blog or website?

I’ve wrestled with this myself. I have noted that when I add an article to one of my websites, most of which are run by WordPress blogging software, people come to the website. When I write an article and submit it to another website, with links back to one of my websites, I don’t get as many immediate visitors to my website — but having a link from another site back to my website (backlinking is the term) is very important in the long run.

So, my approach is to try to do BOTH. For example, I might write an article for one of my affiliate marketing sites comparing playstation 3 with xbox 360. (I really know very little about gaming systems and may have that comparison totally wrong, but you get the idea.) Then I would writing a different article about playstation 3 and another article about xbox 360 — with links in both articles to the article on my site comparing the two gaming systems. I would then submit both of those to an article directory like EzineArticles.com.

That way, I would have the benefit of traffic to my site from 1) the original article, 2) the playstation 3 article link from EzineArticles.com, and, 3) the xbox 360 article link form EzineArticles.com.

So, from that point I merely repeat the process for my websites, and perhaps add articles (each different from the others) at Squidoo, HubPages, and some of the other online article sites.

The other approach, which I like in concept but find difficult in real life, is simply putting the same amount of effort into three, four, five, six, etc., original articles written on related “keywords” to post to my own website.

I personally know two individuals who make serious online money (as in $5,000+ per month, which is serious in my household), one by posting articles on his own site and following up with articles linking back to his site; the other posts almost exclusively on his own site only and over the years has turned it into a real authority site on his subject, with literally tens of thousands of articles.

So both ideas have their merits; both work. You decide how and what you wish to write. And may success, good fortune, and lots of writing income rain down upon you.