How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

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

As digital business continues growing at an overwhelming speed and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vital that you try to stay on top of what’s going on and make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if having a digital presence plays an important role in your overall business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the US-based BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

These laws has implications for various business activities, including:

• Any form of advertising, like Google AdSense
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

If you do not include certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo will not let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend web applications, and you will not be allowed into a number of advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

If you are not in compliance, you could end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your site may be subject to certain legal requirements, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose services or products you may be endorsing on your site, and that there are solutions for WordPress that can help your online properties become more compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.

Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?

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

The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Is your business at risk? Consider for one moment what the implications to your business would be if these scenarios were to happen:

• Someone suffers a heart attack after using your online fitness workout.
• The skin cream you promote as an affiliate gives someone allergic reactions.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not spelled out exactly what you plan to do with it.
• Someone copies content from your site and puts it up on their own site.
• There is no statement on your site making your site users aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re marketing and will derive a commission if visitors buy it.
• You don’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Someone claims the testimonials on your site are false and tries to sue you.
• You did not disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your site includes adult-related content and you did not take sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider also these real examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up their personal information (including credit card info to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, they’re now required to provide everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach of 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 they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk being targeted for non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Product Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

It’s imperative to ensure that your digital presence stays legally compliant.

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

All the leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade in most countries emphasize the need of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.

You are required to let your visitors know that your website complies will all legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you engage with.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires you to display certain information when using many of their services. This includes Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Monetizing your blog using Google AdSense online advertising …

(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)

And even promoting your site via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell digital products via merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will be required to add a number of legal pages before your products are approved for sale …

(ClickBank – policy requirements)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially if you plan to sell products and services with the aid of product testimonials or endorsements …

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant

FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by ensuring that your site complies with all FTC regulations.

There are many business resource sites that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to resources at the end of this article …

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

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you plan to create social networking applications that integrate with your website, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others will require you to provide information about various legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• 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., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote services or products on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue online 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 display on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
• If you have ever wondered 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 third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use)

What Compliance Pages Does Your Website Need To Be Legally Compliant?

If you suspect that your web site is lacking in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.

Adding the following compliance pages to your website should keep your business out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and 3rd-party service providers, and avoid possible legal issues):

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

Additionally, you may want to look into including one or more of these pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you promote or sell affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides advice about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Use Of Media (if you allow media downloads on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

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

• No Material Connection – Lets users know that you’re not receiving compensation for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Lets site users be aware that you will benefit financially if they buy through your affiliate links.
• Review/Sample Copy – Lets readers know that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product you’re reviewing by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs site users that you were compensated in some form to write the content.
• 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Compliance Pages To Your WordPress Website

Ideally, you will consult lawyers and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Pages Manually

If someone prepares and delivers the legal content 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 creating a legal folder in your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …

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

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

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to all visitors. You can add these to your sidebar (or place them in the footer of your site) to ensure that visitors can access the information from all your site’s pages …

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

If you need help displaying links to pages on your WP sidebar or footer using widgets, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• How To Use Widgets In WordPress

Use Ready-Made Legal Templates

You can easily find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or by going to sites like the ones shown below:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

For more information, go here:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can purchase a package of website legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Legal Pages)

These legal pages were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates FTC guidelines that came into effect on March 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• ToS & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new page for each 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 web server as previously described.

For more details, visit this website:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages

As well as using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use WordPress plugins.

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

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

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

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

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

• Pre-written Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you will need in a few minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit all legal pages like any page on your site.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When a user agrees to the legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

When you install 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 your admin area …

(WP Legal Pages – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, niche sites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)

Select from several built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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

Go here to learn more about the benefits of using this powerful plugin:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin with over twenty customizable compliance templates for your site …

Learn We’ve written an in-depth article about this plugin here:

• Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)

Legal Suite Pro 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. 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 this plugin on all of your websites.

Go here for more details:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring a lawyer to create your legal documentation is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance from a solicitor.

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 page templates, or a plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

***

As stated earlier, if you do business online, you need to ensure that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service for third-party products and services that you may be promoting or recommending 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice in this article. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law pertaining to your business.

Resources

Here is a useful 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:

• FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• Federal Trade Commission 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
• United States Patent and Trademark Office
• United States Copyright Office

See 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

We hope you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your site using simple methods and resources.

***