How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

As a website owner, the last thing you want is to learn the hard way that you have broken the law.

Internet laws, regulations, and guidelines are designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells or promotes products and services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements will not excuse you from being slapped with a legal notice.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your website for commercial gain, then you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau (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 – Better Business Bureau)

The introduction of these new laws has implications for various business activities, including:

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

Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook could disapprove your applications, and you won’t be allowed to enrol in a range of advertising and online merchant networks.

More importantly, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.

The purpose of this post is to make you aware that your site(s) are subject to legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern businesses online, the importance of complying with the terms of service of external providers whose services or products you may be selling on your site, and that there are plugins for WordPress that can help your sites become compliant, such as the plugins that we discuss further below.

Is Your Website Breaking Rules Or Regulations?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice about your website or business. As stated previously, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern online business practices and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of companies whose products or services you endorse on your website

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• A person has a heart attack after using your online fitness program.
• The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users allergic reactions.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement letting subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not defined what you will do with the details you have collected.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their own site.
• You haven’t informed your visitors that you’re an affiliate for the product you are endorsing and may get paid a sales commission if visitors buy it.
• You did not spell out the terms of your refund policies.
• Online visitors claim the testimonials on your site are fake and try to sue you as a result.
• You didn’t disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your site includes adult content and you didn’t take sufficient measures to keep underage children from accessing it.

Consider too the documented case studies of costly compliance breaches 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. 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 private details about children.
• 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, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had broken 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 whose policies they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how a business owner can easily become exposed to the risk of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdWords Advertiser
• Info Product Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

it’s important to make sure that your digital presence complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Compliance With Third-Party Services

Compliance with third-party companies terms and policies is important.

You must let your site visitors know that your website complies with laws and professional guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will interact with online.

For example:

Google requires your site to display certain information when using their products. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Monetizing your blog using Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

Or promoting your products or services using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell products online via places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale …

(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 products or services online with the aid of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Be Compliant

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

If you do any type of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your website complies with all FTC guidelines.

There are many sites that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See the references and 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)

Social Media Apps Also Require Compliance

If you are planning to develop social networking applications that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with access to your legal pages …

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

• If you are unsure as to whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., 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 generating 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 include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
• If you have been wondering 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 websites require you to comply with their terms of use)

What Compliance Information Pages Do I Need To Add To My Website To Be Covered Against Legal Compliance Issues?

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

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site should help your site keep out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and external service providers, and avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):

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

In addition to the above, you may want to look into implementing one or more of these legal pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides health or medical content)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Video/Audio Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to download videos or audio files on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding the right type of web content disclosure is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets readers be aware that you’re not receiving any form of compensation for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Notifies your readers that you will benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and purchase through an affiliate link.
• Sample Or review Copy – Lets readers be aware that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Lets your visitors know that you were compensated in some way to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets your visitors 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 website publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Compliance Pages To Your Website

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

Upload Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site

If someone prepares the legal content for you in standard web page formatting (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 server and uploading your legal pages to this directory via FTP …

(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)

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

(WordPress Menu)

Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and display clearly to visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your sidebar menu (or place them in the footer of your website) to ensure that visitors will be able to access legal information from every web page …

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

We have created a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your WordPress sidebar here:

• Adding Widgets To The Sidebar

Ready-Made Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

Go here for more info:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can download a set of legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These templates 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 name and URL, then pasted into your pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy
• ToS & Conditions of Use.

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

More information:

• Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

As well as using cut & paste templates, you can keep things very simple using a plugin.

Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress-powered sites worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

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

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time.

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

• Built-in Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you will need in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages like every other WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to your 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 page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when users agree to your terms.
• Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will be added to your navigation section …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings Screen)

With WPLegal Pages, you can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, niche websites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Page type dropdown menu)

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

To learn more this WordPress plugin, visit this site:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs containing over 20 customizable legal pages for your digital presence …

Go here to learn more about the plugin:

• Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)

Legal Suite Pro 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress site. You can have legal pages 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 (even sites that you decide to sell).

More information:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

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

We want your site to be legally safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal content, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator quickly generates essential 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 engage in any form of commercial activity online, you need to make sure that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) of third-party sites that you may be promoting or offering online. Your digital presence must comply with various laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not even be aware of.

Being non-compliant 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 offer no legal advice on this website. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law in your country or region.

Resources

Below is a useful list of sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to stay compliant and meet legal obligations:

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

Also …

• 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 provided above to quickly add essential legal pages to your website or blog.

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