WPShout Is Funded Through Commissions

Our advertising policy in detail

Banners or popup ads have never been our thing.

We believe that those make consuming content harder and interrupt the reader in ways that are not helpful in what they want to achieve. That’s why we’ve opted not to use traditional advertising altogether.

However, WPShout is still a business, and as such, it needs revenue sources to keep the lights on 🛋️ (and make a profit, ideally).

This is where affiliate links come into play.

Under the hood, affiliate links work like any other link – if you click them, they will send you over to another page on the web. What’s particular about them is that they include a tracking code. By using this tracking code, the destination website knows that a specific visitor came from WPShout. If the reader then makes a purchase, we’ll often receive a commission from the seller.

The price on the box doesn’t change for the buyer. The commission comes from the seller as a cut of their profits.

Why affiliate links?

We believe using affiliate links is a better overall business model than traditional ads.

• First, there’s the interruption issue with regular ads that we mentioned above.
• Second, traditional ads don’t provide any actual value above letting the person know about a given product.

It’s a different story with affiliate links.

You’ll notice that each product we link to via an affiliate link has a description of what it is, why the reader should consider it, plus often what its pros and cons are. That way, the reader gets some context regarding the link in question and can decide whether they want to check the thing out or not.

Oftentimes, our affiliate links are used in head-to-head comparisons and reviews, which provide the reader with even more hands-on information about the product in question.

Publishing this content helps our readers save time and stress when figuring out what to buy (product X vs Y). We always aim to tell you what the best “thing” in a given comparison is and we put our reputation on it.

The recommendations we make are a result of in-depth analysis, testing, and hours of work spent on a single blog resource, comparison, or review. We pride ourselves on always getting to the bottom of things and spending as much time and energy as needed to get there.

Do affiliate links make us biased?

You’re probably wondering if using affiliate links doesn’t make us biased or have influence over our judgment.

The short answer is no. But it goes deeper:

Our recommendations are always made entirely by the writer working on a given piece and aren’t influenced by our affiliations in the market. It’s the writer who has the full authority and independence to name the top solution according to their analysis and conclusions.

We only affiliate with recognizable brands and quality products. This makes recommending them very easy and intuitive.

In simple terms, we never say that some product is great because we’re affiliated with it. It’s the other way around: we affiliate only with products that we think are great.

On the other hand, we’ve also promoted and recommended our fair share of non-affiliate products and solutions, and even named them to be better than some of the more commercial stuff out there. One of the best examples of this and something we recommend across tens of different resources and content pieces is WordPress itself (for general site-building) along with WooCommerce (for eCommerce site building). 

Our core values and editorial principles guide the ways in which our writers create accurate, unbiased, and actionable content that serves our readers first.

Why are we telling you this?

First, it’s illegal not to disclose affiliations.

But apart from that, we’ve decided to take this opportunity and opt for full transparency. This is why we’re getting so in-depth about our affiliations and why we’re taking part in them.

Here’s a complete list of our affiliations:

• Hosting: SiteGround, Bluehost, WP Engine, Kinsta, InMotion Hosting, Flywheel, A2 Hosting, Namecheap, GoDaddy, Dreamhost, HostGator, Hostinger, Cloudways, WPX hosting, Domain.com
• Email marketing tools: Sendinblue, OptinMonster, AWeber, MailJet, ConstantContact, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, MailerLite
• WordPress themes and design resources: Elegant Themes, Astra, OceanWP, Envato / ThemeForest, TemplateMonster, Thrive Themes, Themefuse, Athemes, CreativeTim, Templatic, WPZoom
• WordPress plugins: Elementor, Beaver Builder, WPForms, BlogVault, TranslatePress, UpdraftPlus, Convert Pro, WeGlot, MalCare, WPML, UnbounceWebsite builders: Wix, Shopify, BigCommerce
• Online tools and other: LiveChat, MaxCDN, SEMrush, TimeDoctor, Dashlane, 1Password, Lastpass, Magento Marketplace, BackBlaze, iDrive, iStock, EverWebinar, Toptal, Crash Plan, Codeable, Google Workspace
• Online education: Udemy, Treehouse