How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

If you do any kind of business online, you do not want to find yourself breaking any rules or regulations.

Online laws are designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells or promotes goods and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not protect someone from taking legal action against you.

New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for profit, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the Better Business Bureau, also known as BBB. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Better Business Bureau Website)

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

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

Without certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t let you list digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could disapprove web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enrol in many advertising or online merchant networks.

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

In this guide, we look at why it’s important to have a compliant website and how to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog.

Is Your Website Or Blog Breaking Rules Or Regulations?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice about your website or business. As previously stated, the purpose of this article is only to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws that govern business practices online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose services or products you endorse on your website or blog

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

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

• A person suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
• The skin care products you promote as an affiliate gives people skin rashes.
• Your opt-in list displays 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’ve collected.
• Someone copies your content and publishes it on their website.
• You did not tell visitors that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re promoting and may earn a financial benefit if visitors purchase it using your link.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms of your refund/return policies.
• A visitor claims your testimonials are false and decides to sue you because of it.
• You did not disclose that you have received a free copy in a product review.
• Your site includes adult information and you didn’t take appropriate measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider too the documented case studies of costly compliance breaches below:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information (including credit card details to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered to issue everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• A social networking app developer received a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% were in violation of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 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 be exposed to the risks of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdWords User
• Product Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

It’s vitally important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website remains fully compliant with the law.

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

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

For example:

Google requires websites to display certain information if using many of their products or service. This includes Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Earning revenue online with your WordPress sites with Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)

And even promoting your business via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information-based products via merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you are required to add certain legal pages before they will approve your products for selling via their networks …

(Policy requirements for vendors using ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you add clear disclaimers and statements to visitors, especially regarding the use of product testimonials or endorsements …

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many websites are still 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 chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by ensuring that your website complies with FTC regulations.

Various resources online provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references at the end of this article …

(It’s important to word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

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

(Facebook apps also require compliance)

• If you are unsure as to whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting anything online via affiliate marketing, or making money online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or use Google AdWords pay-per-click ads to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to provide on your site to comply with all 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 services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)

What Legal Information Pages Does My Website Need To Be Legally Compliant?

If you suspect that your website or blog lacks in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

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

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

Additionally, you may want to look into adding any of the following pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you promote or sell affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general financial advice)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding correct web content disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets your readers be aware that you’re not receiving any type of compensation for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Informs readers that you will be compensated if they buy through your affiliate link.
• Sample Or review Copy – Informs users that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service.
• Sponsored Post – Informs readers that you were compensated in some form to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets 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 online publishers to show 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 created, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Uploading Legal Pages 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 server, or have someone upload these pages for you.

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

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

You can then add a link to these legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …

(WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Website

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and display clearly to visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the sidebar menu (or the footer of your website or blog) so that users will be able to access the information from every web page …

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

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

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To The Site

Legal Templates

You can easily find downloadable attorney-prepared forms and agreements just by searching online, or visiting sites like the ones listed below:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms – Legal forms)

To learn more, go here:

• Find Legal Forms

Alternatively, you can purchase a package of website legal templates written by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website templates were written by an attorney and 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 legal pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new Federal Trade Commission regulations that came into effect in March 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, DoubleClick DART, etc.
• 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 each legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as previously described.

More info:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

Plugins – Legal Pages

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

Here are some great WordPress plugins worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

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

This plugin is not free, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported plugin that will help make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you many headaches.

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

• Pre-written Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by 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.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages like any other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information is then 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 every other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When users agree to the legal terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will display inside your main navigation menu section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings Screen)

With WPLegal Pages, you can easily create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, review websites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)

Select from several built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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 this handy plugin, go here:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin

complete website compliance and disclaimer solution …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

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 & Conditions
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro – 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 powered site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

More info:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

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

We want your site to be protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal forms, or a legal pages plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

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

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As stated earlier, if you are making money online (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) required by 3rd-party sites that you may decide to promote or sell online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended 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 cannot offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.

Legal Resources & References

Here is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to stay compliant and meet its 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
• US Patent and Trademark Office
• United States Copyright Office

See 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
• 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 above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog using simple methods and solutions.

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