When I started chipping away at finding affiliate programs that are a good fit for this blog, one of the first ones I had thought of was Patagonia. If you have been here from the beginning, you’ll know that the site name started off as PatagoniaDad. In fact I still have the http://www.patagoniadad.com url pointing to this site, and most of my social media handles are some version of @patagoniadad.
As a climber, I have long been a Patagonia fan. I used to live where the flagship store is, knew people who worked there and designed clothes for them, love the gear, and really respect what the company stands for. The group of people I used to work out with at my last gym, would joke with me all the time about how many different jackets of theirs I own. All that aside, I’ve bought many things from them and I have been meaning to do reviews on their stuff for a while…affiliate or not.
AvantLink is the company that handles Patagonia’s affiliate program and their verification method seems pretty standard as I learn more about how affiliate stuff works. The quickest verification method is to install some javascript on your site’s home page, click one of their links that will check to see if the script is there, then viola!…you are verified and one step closer to being approved. However, even with a WordPress premium plan, you can’t install plug-ins that would allow javascript (that requires a business plan)…so you have to do a little work around that Avant Link walks you through.
They have a specific call out for WordPress users like you and I:
WordPress: WordPress is the most popular ‘do it yourself’ website editor.
In order to get the JavaScript verification script integrated, you have to write a blog entry, select “Text” instead of “Visual” editing, and then use the “<code>“ and “</code>“ tags to surround the script. That way it will not be visible, but the confirmation script (which searches for the embedded script) would then be able to find it.
AvantLink Support Site
Below is what that looks like.
You probably don’t see anything…maybe a small “play” icon. [Correction, it looks like a link…that doesn’t really work] When you are pasting in the javascript to your site, you will have to click the page editor menu (top right of your WP blog post editing page) and switch from Visual Editor to Code Editor. Paste in the javascript they provide, put <code> in front of it and </code> at the end, then switch back to Visual Editor.
Boom! The verification javascript is there. You do have to post it to your home page…so if that is a blog post like this, then you will have to post it. And from what I understand, it can’t be behind a “read more” link, it has to be visible ON the home page. Now click on the verification link and wait. They say that once it is verified that you can delete the script…but I’ll probably leave mine here since I used it for a blog post.
I will update this post once I get some sort of response on what happens and if it works.
If you are curious about some of the good affiliate program sites I’ve found feel free to drop a comment. AvantLink seems like one that has good core values and is looking for quality over quantity. Just my style.
Scott from California 
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