How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

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

Internet laws and regulations were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells or promotes products or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t excuse someone from taking legal action against you.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, then you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Better Business Bureau – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The introduction of these new laws has legal ramifications for several business categories, including:

• Any kind of advertising, including text link advertising, Google Adsense, etc.
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creators
• Bloggers
• etc.

Without certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to list digital products for sale, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could reject your web applications, and you won’t be allowed into most advertising or affiliate marketing networks.

If your website is not compliant, you could end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

This guide explains the importance of having a legally compliant website and how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your website.

Does Your Website Comply With The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice on this website. As stated earlier, the aim of this article is to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws governing business practices online and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you use on your website or blog

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Consider for a moment what the implications to your business would be if these situations were to occur:

• A customer has a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness workout.
• The skin care products you promote as an affiliate gives people allergic reactions.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you plan to do with the information you’ve collected.
• Someone copies your content and publishes it on their website.
• There is no statement on your website letting your visitors know that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate that you will derive a commission if they decide to buy through your link.
• You didn’t spell out the terms of your refund policies.
• Online visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are fake and try to sue you as a result.
• You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
• Your website includes adult-related information and you have not taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underage persons.

Consider now the real examples 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 an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with a whopping $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 Users IDs. Many marketers took a risk 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 in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation 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 with warnings or lose access entirely to the Google program whose policies with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to be exposed to the risks of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

It’s imperative to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Complying With 3rd-Party Companies

Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.

You are required to let your visitors know that your website complies will all laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will engage with online.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires you to display legal information if using many of their products or features. This includes Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Making money online with your website using Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

Or promoting your site via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell products online via merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank digital product vendors)

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

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant

New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many sites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this often ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners for breaches of regulation 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 any chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by making sure that your website is compliant with FTC regulations and guidelines.

There are many business resource sites that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you plan to create apps that will integrate with your website, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others will require you to provide information about your legal pages …

(Social networking apps also require compliance)

• If you are not sure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote products or services on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your site using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
• If you have ever wondered 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 terms of use)

Essential Legal Pages To Include In Your Website To Ensure Compliance

If you suspect that your web site lacks in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website will help keep your business out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and 3rd-party providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):

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

Additionally, you may want to consider including any of the pages listed below where applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general content about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Audio/Video Terms (if you provide users with access to downloadable media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

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

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

How To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you will consult your lawyer and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been done, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Site

If someone prepares the legal content for you in standard web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend creating a legals folder in your server and uploading your legal pages to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …

(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your web server and upload pages via FTP)

You can then add links to these pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly accessible to all site visitors. You can add these to the sidebar menu (or place them in the footer section of your site) so that users have access to the information from every web page …

(Display links to your legal pages to users on all of your website’s pages)

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

• Using Widgets In WordPress

Use Legal Templates

You can easily find attorney-drafted downloadable forms and agreements just by searching online, or by visiting sites like the ones listed below:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

More information:

• Find Legal Forms

Alternatively, you can purchase a package of website legal templates written by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)

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

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• 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 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 these to your web server as described previously.

Go here for more information:

• Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using templates, you can simplify things using WordPress plugins.

Here are some legal plugins for WordPress-driven websites that you may be interested in checking out:

WordPress Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you many headaches.

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

• Pre-written Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any WordPress page.
• Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When users agree to your legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will display inside your WP dashboard section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)

With WPLegal Pages, you have the option of easily creating legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, affiliate sites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Type of Site menu)

Select from various built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages – 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

To learn more about the benefits of using this WordPress plugin, go here:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

total website compliance & disclaimer solution …

Learn more about the plugin here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro)

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 And 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 powered site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.

More info:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance.

We want your website to be safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal content, or a legal pages plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software lets you quickly generate basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

***

As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do business online, you need to make sure that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies and any terms of service and guidelines of third-party sites that you may be promoting or offering online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumer rights, 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 are not offering legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.

Legal Resources

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

• 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

Additionally …

• Google 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 provided above to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress website using simple and cost-effective methods and solutions.

***