How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Learn how to make your WordPress site or blog legally compliant and how to shortcut the process using legal page creation plugins …

Making Your Website The Importance Of Having A Legally Compliant Website - Legal Pages To Add To Your Site

One of the worst situations a website owner can find themselves in is to be on the wrong side of the law.

Online laws and regulations are designed to protect consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes goods or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t prevent you from being slapped with a legal notice.

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

Better Business Bureau - Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

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

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

If your website does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in various advertising or online marketing networks.

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

The purpose of this post is to help make you aware that your website may be required to comply with legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern online businesses, the importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be selling on your website, and that there are easy solutions that can help your sites become fully compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.

Does Your Site Comply With The Law?

Is Your Website Legally Compliant?

Useful Information

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice in this article. As previously stated, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations governing online business practices and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you advertise on your website

The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Are you at risk? Consider what would happen to your business if the following incidents were to happen:

  • A person has a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness program.
  • The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate gives a number of users an adverse reaction.
  • You’ve informed your subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t clearly informed them what you plan to do with the information you’ve collected.
  • Someone copies content from your site and puts it up on their site.
  • There is no statement on your website or blog telling your site visitors that you are an affiliate for the product you’re selling that you may derive an affiliate commission if visitors purchase it.
  • You don’t spell out the conditions of your return policies.
  • Someone claims that your testimonials are fake and decides to sue you.
  • You did not disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
  • Your site contains adult content and you didn’t take sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

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

  • A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, he is now required to provide a copy of the judgement to everyone he does business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
  • A social networking app developer copped 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 prohibits using software that scrapes UIDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
  • An independently-conducted 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 breaking at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 cautions 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 risk becoming a target of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

  • CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
  • Network Marketer
  • Affiliate Promoter
  • AdWords User
  • Product Marketer
  • Amazon Associate
  • EBay Seller
  • Adult Content Publisher
  • Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
  • Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

It’s vitally important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business has the right legal pages and information displayed to all site users.

Compliance With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies

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 obligated to let your site users know that your business complies will all laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also required by most companies you will do business with online.

For example:

Google requires you to display certain information if using their products or service. This includes using features such as Google Analytics

Google Analytics - Policy Requirements

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Earning revenue online with your blogs with Google AdSense display advertising

Google AdSense - policy requirements

(Google AdSense online advertising - policy requirements)

Or promoting your business through Google AdWords

Google AdWords - Policy Requirements

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell digital products using companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add a number of legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …

ClickBank - policy requirements

(Policy requirements for ClickBank digital product vendors)

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

Federal Trade Commission - consumer policies and regulations

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

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

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

There are many online resources that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references at the end of this article …

Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations

(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you plan to create social networking applications for your site users, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with access to various legal pages …

Facebook developer app - policy requirements

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

Tip

  • If you are unsure as to whether or not you are 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 anything on your site using affiliate marketing, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or using Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
  • If you’ve ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.

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

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

Essential Legal Pages To Include In Your Site To Ensure Compliance

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

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site should keep your business out of trouble with many consumer protection agencies and external providers, and even help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):

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

  • Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you promote or sell affiliate products or services)
  • Anti-Spam Policy
  • Compensation Disclosure
  • External Linking Policy
  • Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides advice about health or medical areas)
  • Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
  • Media Terms Of Use (if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the correct type of disclosure to your website is important. For example:

  • No Material Connection – Informs readers that you are not being paid for writing the content.
  • Affiliate Links – Discloses to readers that you will receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate links.
  • Review Or Sample Copy – Lets site users know that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service.
  • Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets readers be aware that you were compensated in some way to write the content.
  • Third Party Advertising – Lets readers know 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 To Your Site

Ideally, you should consult a lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Web Pages To Your Website

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

We recommend adding a legal directory to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …

Upload legal pages to your server via FTP

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

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

WordPress Menu

(WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Website

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and display clearly to all visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your site) so that visitors have access to legal information from every page …

It's important to display links to legal pages to users on all of your website's pages

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

If you need help adding links to pages on your sidebar menu using widgets, see this tutorial:

Legal Templates

You can find attorney-prepared downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or visiting websites like the ones listed below:

Find Legal Forms

FindLegalForms.com

(Find Legal Forms – Legal forms)

More information:

Alternatively, you can download a package of cut & paste website legal templates drafted by legal attorney Scott Talbert

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)

These templates 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 web pages.

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

  • Anti-Spam Policy
  • Copyright Notice
  • Disclaimer
  • DMCA Compliance
  • FTC Compliance
  • Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
  • Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use: includes inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.

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

For more details, go here:

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

As well as using legal templates, you can simplify things by using WordPress plugins.

Here are some plugins for WordPress users that you may be interested in using:

WordPress Legal Pages

WP Legal Pages Plugin

(WP Legal Pages)

If the idea of creating legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider using a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …

This is not a free plugin, but it’s an affordable and well-supported plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you time.

Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages are:

  • Pre-written Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
  • Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with a few mouse clicks.
  • Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
  • Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other page on your website.
  • Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
  • Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any WP page.
  • Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks when users agree to your legal terms.
  • Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will appear inside your main navigation area …

WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress - Legal Pages Menu

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress - Settings Area

(WP Legal Pages – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, niche sites, Amazon sites, etc …

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress - Type of Site dropdown menu

(WordPress Legal Pages – Type of Site menu)

You can also choose from a number of pre-configured legal templates …

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin - Legal Templates

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – 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

Go here to learn more about this handy plugin:

Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar Plugin - Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your online presence …

Compliance Bar - Total Website Compliance And Disclaimer Solution

Go here to learn more about this plugin:

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress

(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 & Conditions
  • Earnings Disclaimer

Legal Suite Pro For WordPress - Professionally-written legal forms

(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 information:

Important

If using the services of legal experts to create your legal pages 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 assistance.

We want your website to be protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal templates, or a legal pages plugin - see section below.

Legal Pages Generator

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to quickly generate necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you make money online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your website complies with all legal requirements and the guidelines and terms of service for third-party sites that you may be promoting or endorsing online. Your internet presence must comply with various laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not even be aware of.

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?

Info

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice here. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.

Resources

Here is a time-saving list of additional sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your website may require to stay compliant and meet its legal obligations:

See Also …

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress website.

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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)