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, regulations, and guidelines are designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes goods and services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not excuse someone from taking legal action against your business.

New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for material gain, you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

These laws has ramifications for several online business categories, including:

• Any form of advertising, e.g. contextual advertising
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creation
• Blogging
• etc.

If your site does not display certain pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook will reject your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote many advertising and online marketing networks.

If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

In this guide, we look at why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website.

Is Your Website Breaking Rules Or Regulations?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations wherever your business is located.

Understanding The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Consider what could happen to your business if these scenarios were to occur:

• A person suffers a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness workout.
• The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate gives people an allergic reaction.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not spelled out exactly what you will do with their personal details.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their site.
• There is no statement on your website making your site visitors aware that you are an affiliate for the product you are promoting and will get paid a financial benefit if they purchase it.
• You didn’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
• A visitor claims the testimonials on your site are false and decides to sue you because of it.
• You didn’t disclose that you have received a free copy of the product you are reviewing.
• Your website publishes adult content and you didn’t take sufficient measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.

Consider too the documented case studies of costly compliance breaches below:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card information to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private information.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% were breaking 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 violation of at least 3 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 to the Google program with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk being exposed to litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

It’s imperative to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website stays fully compliant with the law.

Complying With 3rd-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.

Big companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.

You must let your site users know that your website complies will all legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you interact with.

Here are just some examples:

Google requires websites to display certain information when using their services. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Monetizing your site using Google AdSense online advertising …

(Google AdSense - policy requirements)

And even promoting your site using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information-based products via merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add a number of legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …

(Policy requirements for vendors selling through ClickBank)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to add clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute site owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC guidelines and regulations.

There are many business resources that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references at the end of this article …

(It’s important to word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you plan to create apps for your website users, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others will require you to provide access to your legal pages …

(Apps that integrate with social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote products or services on your site as an affiliate marketer, or making money online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
• If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

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

Essential Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Site To Ensure Compliance

If your website or blog falls short in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

Adding the following compliance pages to your website will help keep your business out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and 3rd-party providers, and even help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):

• About Us Page
• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Disclaimers
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

In addition to the above pages, you may want to consider including any of the following pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general advice about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

It’s important to add correct disclosures to your site. For example:

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

Adding Legal Content To Your Website

Ideally, you will have your lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Upload Legal Web Pages Manually

If someone prepares the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend creating a legal folder on your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …

(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your web server and upload pages using FTP)

You can then add links to your legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …

(Custom 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 visible to visitors. You can add these to the WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your website or blog) so that visitors can access the information from all of your pages …

(It’s important to display links to your legal pages on all of your site’s pages)

We have created a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar using widgets here:

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In Your Site

Legal Templates

You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and internet forms and agreements by searching online, or visiting sites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-drafted legal forms)

For more details, visit this site:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can purchase a set of website legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)

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

The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Templates include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new FTC regulations that came into effect on March 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.

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

Go here for more info:

• Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Page Templates

WordPress Legal Plugins

In addition to using templates, you can keep things very simple by using WordPress plugins.

Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider choosing WP Legal Pages …

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you loads of headaches.

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

• Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you need in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages like every other page on your site.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
• 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 lock down. Page unlocks only when user agrees to your terms.
• New Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will display inside your navigation section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings Area)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, affiliate/review websites, medical sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Type of Site menu)

You can also choose from various built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Pre-configured 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 the plugin website to learn more about this plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin

total website compliance & disclaimer solution …

More info:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)

This 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 & Conditions
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin 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. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites.

More information:

• Legal Suite Pro

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

We want your website to be safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal page templates, or a legal pages plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to easily generate basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of business online (or plan to), it’s important that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service provided by third-party services and products that you may be promoting or selling online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.

Non-compliance 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements pertaining to your business.

Resources

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

• FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• BBB – 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
• US Patent and Trademark Office
• US Copyright Office

See Also …

• Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
• Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
• AdSense Help – Required Content
• Google AdWords – Information Collection And Use
• Google 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 the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website.

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