How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

One of the worst things that can happen to a business owner is to break the law.

As the digital way of life continues growing at such a rapid pace and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s absolutely essential that you stay on top of what’s going on and ensure that your website remains compliant, especially if your web presence is an integral factor in your overall business strategy.

Recent 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, you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau, also known as BBB. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

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

• Any kind of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creators
• Bloggers
• etc.

If you do not display 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 won’t approve your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could disapprove your applications, and you will not be allowed to promote most advertising and online merchant networks.

You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.

This guide explains why it’s important to have a compliant website and how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your site.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice about your website or business. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.

Understanding The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Is your business at risk? Consider what would happen to your business if these situations were to happen:

• Someone suffers a heart attack after using your online fitness workout.
• The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link allergic reactions.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement letting subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you’ll do with their personal details.
• Someone copies your content and publishes it on their site.
• There is no statement on your website or blog making visitors aware that you are promoting a product as an affiliate and could get paid a sales commission if they buy it.
• You didn’t spell out the conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Your visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are all fake and try to sue you because of it.
• You didn’t disclose that you received a free copy in your product review.
• Your site contains adult content and you have not taken appropriate measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider also the documented examples of costly compliance breaches described:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information to complete his offer. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered to issue everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• A social networking app developer received a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping UIDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted 2010 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% had broken at least 2 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 cautions or lose access to the Google program they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to become exposed to the risks of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA or PPA Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdWords User
• Product Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

it’s important to ensure that your website or blog stays legally compliant.

Complying With Third-Party Services

Compliance with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.

You are required to let your site users know that your business complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you do business with online.

For example:

Google requires websites to display legal information when using their services or features. This includes using services like Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Making money online with your site with Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)

Or promoting your site through Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

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

(Policy requirements for selling through ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you include clear disclaimers and policies on your website, especially when using product testimonials or endorsements …

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has happened in the past, 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 do any type 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. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by ensuring that your site is compliant with all FTC guidelines and regulations.

Many business resource sites provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See the additional resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Applications Also Require Compliance

If you plan to develop apps for your site users, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with access to various legal pages …

(Apps that interface with social networks also require compliance)

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

What Legal Information Do I Need To Add To My Site To Be Legally Compliant?

If your website is lacking in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site will help your business keep out of trouble with most consumer protection 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 Page
• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Disclaimer Pages
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

As well as the pages above, you may want to consider adding any of these compliance pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you promote or sell affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general financial information)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Video/Audio Terms Of Use (e.g. if you provide users with access to downloadable media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding correct disclosure information is important. For example:

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

How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your Website

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

Upload Legal Pages To Your Website

If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload these pages for you.

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

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

You can then add links to your pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu administration …

(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 your sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your site) so that visitors have access to legal information from all pages …

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

To learn more about displaying links to pages on your sidebar and footer menu, refer to this tutorial:

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To Your Sidebar Section

Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

For more details, go here:

• FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms

Another option is to purchase a package of legal templates drafted by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with simple search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service (ToS) & 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 added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as described previously.

More information:

• Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Page Templates

Plugins – Legal Pages

As well as using legal templates, another option is to use a plugin.

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

WP Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Legal Pages)

If manually creating legal pages for your site feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …

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

Here are just some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages:

• Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the basic legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like any WordPress page.
• Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. When a user agrees to your terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• New Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will appear in your dashboard area …

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

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Page type drop down menu)

Choose from several built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Pre-configured 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

For more information about using this plugin, go here:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-powered websites containing over 20 customizable compliance page templates for your online presence …

To learn more about this plugin go here:

• Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)

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 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers 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 license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites.

Visit this website for more details:

• Legal Suite Pro

If using the services of a lawyer to create your legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance.

We want your site to be safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal page templates, or a legal pages plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software 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 make money online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your site is found to comply with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done and the guidelines and terms of service for 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or advertising online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice here. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.

Legal Resources

Below is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to better understand what may be required of your site to comply and meet its legal obligations:

• Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• Better Business Bureau Website
• 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

In Addition …

• Google Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
• Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
• Google 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

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add essential legal pages to your website.

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