How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

One of the worst things that can happen to you as a business owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.

Internet laws and regulations are designed to protect consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes products and services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t prevent someone from taking legal action against your business.

New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for material gain, then you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The introduction of new laws affect various online business categories, including:

• Any kind of advertising, like Google AdSense
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

If your website does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote a range of advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could also end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your site(s) may be required to comply with certain legalities in accordance with the laws that govern business practices online, the importance of complying with the terms of service of external providers whose products or services you may be using on your site, and that there are solutions for WordPress that can help your online properties become fully compliant, such as the plugins that we discuss further below.

Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice about your website or business. As previously stated, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations governing business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party companies whose products or services you promote on your website or blog

Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important

Consider for a minute what would happen to your business if any of the following incidents were to take place:

• A user has a heart attack after using your online workout program.
• The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone allergic reactions.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you’ll do with their details.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their site.
• There is no statement on your website informing your site visitors that you are promoting a product as an affiliate and may receive financial benefits if visitors buy using your affiliate link.
• You have not spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
• Online visitors claim your testimonials are fake and decide to sue you because of it.
• You have not disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your website includes adult information and you didn’t take sufficient measures to restrict access by underage children.

Consider also the actual case studies of costly compliance breaches below:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, they’re now required to issue a copy of the judgement to everyone they do business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• A social networking app developer received a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach of at least three of Google’s policies. Although the website owners could technically be sued by Google, more than likely what could happen, is that they would be issued notices or lose access entirely to the Google program they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk being a target of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) or CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Product Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

You need to make sure that your digital presence complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Compliance With Third-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.

Compliance with third-party services terms and policies is important.

You must let your site visitors know that your website complies with all necessary laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of most companies you do business with online.

For example:

Google requires websites to display certain information if using their products. This includes Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Making money online with your blogs using Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense online advertising - policy requirements)

Or promoting your site through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information-based products via places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you are required to add legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank product vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to include clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially if you plan to sell products and services online using product testimonials or endorsements …

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many websites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any kind of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by making sure that your website is compliant with all FTC regulations and guidelines.

Many resources online provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to resources at the end of this article …

(You must structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These

If you are planning to develop applications that integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with access to your legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure as to whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting products or services on your site as an affiliate marketer, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or driving visitors to your site using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
• If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies)

Essential Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Website To Ensure Compliance

If your website or blog is lacking in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website should help your business stay out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues):

• About Us
• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• Disclaimers
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

In addition to the pages above, you may want to look into adding one or more of the following pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides money-making advice)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Use Of Media (if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

It’s important to add correct disclosure information to your website. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs your visitors that you are not being paid for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Notifies site users that you will be compensated if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate links.
• Sample/Review Copy – Lets readers be aware that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets readers know that you have been compensated in some form to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs visitors that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to comply with the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Pages Content To Your Site

Ideally, you will consult lawyers and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once this has been created, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Upload Legal Web Pages Manually

If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend creating a legal directory in your server and uploading your legal pages to this folder using FTP …

(Upload legal pages to your web server via FTP)

You can then add links to these pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu feature …

(WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Website

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly accessible to all site visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar menu (or the footer of your website) so that users have access to the information from every web page …

(Display links to your legal information on all of your site’s pages)

We have created a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer here:

• Adding Widgets To The WordPress Sidebar Navigation Menu

Ready-Made Legal Templates

You can easily find attorney-drafted downloadable forms and agreements just by searching online, or by going to websites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

Go here to learn more:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can purchase a set of cut & paste website legal templates drafted by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)

These legal pages were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your pages.

The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Page Templates include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects FTC regulations and guidelines brought into effect on March 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service & Conditions of Use: with inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.

You can either create a new WordPress page for every legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your web server as described previously.

To learn more, go here:

• Scott Talbert’s Legal Page Templates

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using legal templates, another option is to use a plugin.

Here are some great legal WordPress plugins that you may be interested in using:

WP Legal Pages

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WP Legal Pages …

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you time.

Some of the benefits of using the WP Legal Pages are:

• Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages just like every other WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks when users agree to your terms.
• Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item is added to your main dashboard area …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)

This lets you view, create and edit your legal pages from the admin area …

(WP Legal Pages – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, review sites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)

Choose from several built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Legal Templates)

Legal page templates include:

• Terms of Use (Users are forced to agree to Terms and Conditions before using site)
• Linking Policy
• External Links Policy
• Terms and Conditions
• Refund Policy
• Affiliate Disclosure
• Privacy Policy
• Affiliate Agreement
• Facebook Privacy Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• Antispam Policy
• DoubleClick DART Cookies Policy
• Disclaimer Template
• FTC Disclosure Statement Template
• Medical Disclaimer Template
• Testimonials Disclosure – As per FTC guidelines
• Amazon Affiliate Disclosure Template
• DMCA Policy Template
• California Privacy Rights Policy Template
• Digital Goods Refund Policy Template
• COPPA – Children’s Online Privacy Policy Template
• Blog Comments Policy Template
• Newsletter Subscription Policy and Disclaimer Template
• FTC Disclaimer Widget

Visit this website to learn more about the benefits of using this handy plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users that includes over 20 customizable legal pages for your online business …

Learn We’ve written a detailed article about this plugin here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)

Legal Suite Pro Plugin lets you easily install professionally-written legal pages such as:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy
• Social Media Disclosure
• Medical Disclaimer
• Terms of Use
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress – Professionally-written legal forms)

Additionally:

• Drag & Drop FTC Disclaimer Widget: Add an FTC Disclaimer to any WordPress sidebar or widget area.
• Customizable EU Cookie Compliance Bar: Display an EU cookie compliance bar if you are getting traffic from the EU and your sites use cookies.

With just one-click you can install almost all of the legal pages your site needs and these professionally written legal pages can be created in your theme and/or as a standalone page outside of your theme.

The plugin developers secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites.

Go here for more details:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring legal experts to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then at least consider implementing some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford legal services.

We want your business to be legally protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal page templates, or a WordPress plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you do business online (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your site is found to comply with all regulations and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines of third-party sites that you may decide to promote or sell online. Your website must comply with a wide range of laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not be aware of.

Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering both financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law concerning your specific business.

Legal Resources And References

Below is a useful list of sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your site may require to comply and meet legal requirements and guidelines:

• Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program
• Dot Com Disclosures: Information About Online Advertising
• Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act
• CAN-SPAM Act Guide
• Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule
• FTC Regulatory Review Web Page
• FTC Rules and Guides Currently Under Review
• The Department of Commerce Internet Policy Task Force – Commercial Data Privacy and Innovation in the Internet Economy: A Dynamic Policy Framework
• FTC Staff Report: Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising
• FTC Final Guides Governing Endorsements and Testimonials
• United States Patent and Trademark Office
• United States Copyright Office

And …

• Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
• Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
• AdSense Help – Required Content
• Google AdWords – Information Collection And Use
• AdWords Help – What to include in your privacy policy for remarketing
• ClickBank – Creating Your First Product
• Facebook Platform Policies

We hope you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress site using inexpensive resources and solutions.

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