Your gear page is a form of self-expression you might not have thought much about. It's not just a list of links — it's a window into how you work, what you value, and how much you respect your audience's time and trust.
What You Include (and What You Don't)
A gear page packed with every product you've ever touched says one thing. A gear page with fifteen carefully chosen items — the tools you actually reach for, the ones you'd recommend to a friend setting up their first shop — says something else entirely.
Curation is a signal of expertise. When you choose to leave things off your gear page, your audience notices. "If this person recommends something, it's because they mean it" is the trust you're building.
The creators who earn the most from affiliate commissions aren't the ones with the longest gear pages. They're the ones with the most specific ones.
How You Describe Things
Generic product descriptions — the kind you'd copy from Amazon — say you set this up once and haven't thought about it since. Personal descriptions — "I've cut 200 board-feet of maple with this and it's still sharp" — say you're paying attention.
Your audience can tell the difference. And the ones who can tell the difference are exactly the audience you want.
Whether It's Up to Date
A gear page with discontinued products, dead links, or tools you replaced two years ago signals that you set this up and forgot about it. It's a small thing that quietly erodes trust.
Keeping your gear page current — even just a quarterly review — signals that you take your recommendations seriously. It says: I checked, and I still stand behind this.
The Affiliate Question
Some creators are nervous about affiliate links — worried their audience will think they're only recommending things to earn a commission. The solution isn't to hide the links. It's to be so clearly specific and honest in your recommendations that the affiliate relationship doesn't matter.
When you recommend the exact model you own, describe what you use it for, and note its weaknesses alongside its strengths, your audience trusts you. The affiliate link becomes a service ("here's where to get it") rather than a sales pitch.
What a Good Gear Page Looks Like
Organized. Specific. Personal. Current. Not exhaustive — curated. It doesn't have to be long; it has to be true. The best gear pages feel like getting a recommendation from someone who knows what they're doing and has actually used what they're recommending.
That's what yours should feel like too. Build it on MakerManifest — the platform designed for exactly this.