How WPChestnuts Is Funded
In order to keep publishing great content, we need to at least cover our operating costs (something we’re still working towards as a new site).
How do we do this? Well, rather than hide our content behind a paywall, or accept paid placements, guest posts or ads, we include affiliate/referral links on some posts.
How Do Referrals/Affiliates Work?
If after reading one of our articles you identify that a featured product or service is what you’re looking for, you may decide to purchase/sign up for it. To do this, you may click on the link that’s provided in the article to get to that product or service’s website. If it happens to be a referral/affiliate link, and you go on to make a purchase or sign up, we will receive a small commission from the seller. This won’t cost you anything extra at all – the money comes from the seller, never from you.
Why affiliate links?
We believe this is a much better business model than accepting paid reviews, paid placements, guest posts or traditional advertising. There are a few reasons for this.
- Ads can be, to put it bluntly, annoying, and we want you to be able to focus on the content you’ve come to read, without popups or autoplay videos distracting you.
- Using a method such as a paywall would make our content inaccessible to some readers, and we believe in fair access for all – with no one left out.
- Guest posts and paid reviews could compromise editorial integrity by putting us in the position of having to satisfy other brands and companies. We don’t want that.
That’s why we believe using referral links is the most reader-friendly way to cover our costs. We also believe that adding them to the products and services we are already recommending is also the fairest, most balanced way of funding our site, because it allows us to remain independent, without having to bend to any outside influences or make recommendations for things we don’t believe in.
Do affiliate links influence our recommendations?
In a nutshell: No. They do not!
Our recommendations are made by the author of the article, and these are always based on in-depth research, testing, analysis and experience. They are paid per word and are impartial. They do not earn anything for recommending a particular product or service, and there is no other incentive for them to do so. This ensures our recommendations are all based on our/our writers’ honestly held experiences and belief in the product/service being featured.
And finally…
We/our writers will never mention or include products or services we don’t believe in – and we never, ever place affiliate ads/links within our content purely for the purpose of making money.
We only ever promote products and services we value, often use ourselves and feel will benefit you.
Affiliate links keep us independent, free, and, crucially, funded.
Thank you for reading – and for your support!