How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

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

Online laws, regulations, and guidelines are designed to protect consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes products and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not excuse you from being slapped with a legal notice.

New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, 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). Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)

These laws affect several business categories, including:

Any form of advertising, e.g. pay-per-click advertising
Retarget Marketing
Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
Affiliate Marketers
Product Creators
Blogging
etc.

Without certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account, Facebook could disapprove web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enrol in most advertising and online merchant networks.

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

This article explains the importance of having a legally compliant website and how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple legal resources and solutions.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice on this website. You must carry out your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all laws in your country or region.

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

Consider what could happen to your business if any of the following were to occur:

A customer has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online workout program.
The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate marketer gives people an allergic reaction.
You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t clearly informed them what you will do with their details.
Someone steals content from your website and puts it up on their site.
There is no statement on your site making your visitors aware that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate and could receive financial benefits if they end up purchasing through your link.
You didn’t spell out the terms of your return policies.
Visitors claim the testimonials on your site are false and try to sue you.
You have not disclosed that you have received a free copy in your product review.
Your site contains adult-related information and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged persons.

Consider also the following real case studies of costly compliance breaches:

A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information (including credit card info to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
A social networking app developer was slapped with a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private information.
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 dollars in lost revenue.
An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached 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 with warnings 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 you could become exposed to the risk of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
Network Marketer
Affiliate Product Promoter
AdSense Publisher
Info Product Publisher
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 website or blog complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Complying With Third-Party Companies Terms And Policies

Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need of observing the terms and policies of service providers.

You must let your visitors know that your business complies with laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your website, it’s also required in many cases by most companies you interact with online.

Here are just some examples:

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

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Monetizing your online properties with Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense display advertising policy requirements)

And even promoting your services via Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell information-based products through companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you are required to add certain legal pages before your products can be approved for sale in their marketplace …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for sellers)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and statements to visitors, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

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

If you plan to do any type of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by making sure that your website complies with all FTC regulations and guidelines.

Various online resources provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. We provide links to resources to a number of these at the end of this article …

(You must word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you are planning to develop apps for your website users, 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 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 as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon ads, or driving visitors to your website using 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 to avoid having your accounts suspended.
If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.

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

Common Legal Pages To Add To Your Site To Ensure Compliance

If you suspect that your website or blog is lacking in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.

Adding the following compliance pages to your website should keep your business out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and third-party providers, and even help you avoid possible legal issues):

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

In addition to the pages above, you may want to consider implementing any of these compliance pages:

Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
Anti-Spam Policy
Compensation Disclosure
External Linking Policy
Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general information about financial areas or money-making opportunities)
Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
Video/Audio Terms (e.g. if you provide users with access to videos or audio files on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

It’s important to add the correct types of disclosure pages to your website. For example:

No Material Connection – Discloses to your visitors that you’re not receiving any type of compensation for writing the post.
Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs readers that you will be compensated if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate link.
Sample Or review Copy – Lets users be aware that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product.
Sponsored Post – Lets your readers know that you have been compensated in some form to write the content.
Third Party Advertising – Lets your visitors know 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 Content To Your Site

Ideally, you will 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 include them in your website.

Uploading Legal Pages Manually To Your Website

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

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

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

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

(WordPress Menu)

Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and display clearly to all site visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar menu (or place them in the footer section of your website or blog) so that visitors have access to legal information from every page …

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

For a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer, see this tutorial:

How To Add And Configure Widgets In The WordPress Sidebar

Using Store-Bought Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

More information:

Find Legal Forms

Another option is to purchase a set of cut and paste website legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)

These legal templates were written 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 add your own details, then pasted into your 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 (This proprietary FTC page reflects FTC regulations that came into effect in 2012)
Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
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 on your website for each legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as previously described.

More information:

Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use a plugin.

Here are some great WordPress plugins you should check out:

WordPress Legal Pages

(WordPress Legal Pages)

If the idea of creating legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider using WordPress Legal Pages …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site much easier and save you time.

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

Built-in Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal page templates created by 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 – The plugin includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages like any other page on your website.
Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when published.
Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any page on your site.
Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. 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 menu item is added to your dashboard menu …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, review websites, medical sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)

Select from various built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – 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

Go here to learn more about this plugin:

WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin

complete website compliance and disclaimer solution …

Go here to learn more about this plugin:

Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(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 And Conditions
Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin – 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 plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites.

Go here to learn more:

Legal Suite Pro

If hiring lawyers 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 from a lawyer.

We want your business to be safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal content, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software lets you easily generate basic legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

***

As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies and the terms of service and guidelines for 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or sell online. Your website or blog must comply with a number of regulations, some of which you may not 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.

Additional Information

Below is a time-saving list of websites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your site may require to comply and meet legal requirements and guidelines:

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.