How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

As a business owner, you do not want to suddenly discover that you have been breaking laws, rules or regulations.

As the digital economy continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s absolutely essential to stay on top of what’s happening and ensure that your website remains compliant, especially if your online presence is important in the success of your business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to 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 Better Business Bureau (BBB). Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)

The introduction of new laws has legal implications for several online business categories, including:

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

If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook could reject web applications, and you won’t be allowed into various advertising and affiliate merchant networks.

More importantly, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.

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

Is Your Website Legally Compliant?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations in your country or region.

Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important

Are you at risk? Consider for one moment what the implications to your business would be if any of the scenarios below were to occur:

• A customer has a heart attack after they use your online fitness program.
• The skin care products you promote as an affiliate gives someone an adverse reaction.
• You’ve informed subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you have not clearly informed them what you plan to do with their personal details.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their own site.
• There is no statement on your site letting your site visitors know that you are recommending a product as an affiliate that you could get paid an affiliate commission if they end up purchasing via your link.
• You don’t spell out the conditions of your refund policies.
• A visitor claims that your testimonials are fake and tries to sue you.
• You didn’t disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your website includes adult-related content and you have not taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underage children.

Consider too these real case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with a massive $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 marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting 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% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 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 exposed to non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

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

You need to make sure that your digital presence remains legally compliant.

Complying With Third-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.

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

You are expected to let your site users know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will interact with online.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

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

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Making money online with your sites with Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)

And even promoting your services using Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell information products via merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will be required to add legal pages before they will approve your products for selling via their network …

(Policy requirements for selling digital products through ClickBank)

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

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply

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 is already the case, this typically results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies 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 chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your site complies with all FTC regulations.

You can find many business resource sites that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references and links to useful resources at the end of this article …

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

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you are planning to develop applications that will integrate with your website, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others require you to provide access to various legal pages …

(Social networking apps also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything online using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to display on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts terminated.
• If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies)

Common Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Site To Ensure Compliance

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

Adding the following compliance pages to your website will help keep your business out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):

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

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

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides information about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

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

• No Material Connection – Lets users be aware that you’re not being paid for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs visitors that you may derive some form of financial or similar kind of benefit if they purchase through your affiliate links.
• Sample/Review Copy – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Informs users that you have been compensated in some way to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs your visitors 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 Content To Your WordPress Website

Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once this has been done, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Uploading Legal Pages Manually To Your Website

If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend adding a legals folder to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder using FTP …

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

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

(WordPress Menu)

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

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

To learn more about adding links to pages on your sidebar menu or footer in WordPress using widgets, see this tutorial:

• Using Widgets In WordPress

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)

For more information, go here:

• FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms

Another option is to purchase a package of cut & paste legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)

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

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google, DART, etc.
• ToS & Conditions of Use.

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

Go here to learn more:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using legal templates, another option is to use a plugin.

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

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider installing a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …

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

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

• Pre-written Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages just like every other page on your site.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any other WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. When users agree 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 new menu feature will appear in your main WP dashboard area …

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

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)

You can easily create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, niche websites, medical sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)

Choose from several pre-configured legal templates …

(WP 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

For more details about the benefits of using this WordPress plugin, visit this website:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin

The Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital presence …

More info:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)

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 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 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 plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).

Go here for more details:

• Legal Suite Pro

If using the services of a lawyer to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional legal services.

We want your business to be legally safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (it’s FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal forms, or a WordPress 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 Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online, you need to make sure that your site is compliant with government regulations and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) provided by 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.

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?

Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice on this website. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.

Resources

Here is a useful list of websites we recommend you visit to better understand what may be required of your website to comply and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• 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

Also …

• 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 legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website.

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