How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Is your WordPress site legal? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you do business with?

As the cybersphere continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules keep changing, it’s vitally important that you stay on top of what’s going on and ensure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your digital presence is an essential aspect of your overall business strategy.

Recent 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 departments, such as the Better Business Bureau, also referred to as 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 – BBB)

The introduction of these new laws affect several business categories, including:

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

If your site does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could disapprove your applications, and you won’t be accepted into a number of advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

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

This guide explains the importance of having a compliant website and shows you simple methods and solutions that will make your website compliant in minutes.

Does Your Website Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website. As previously stated, the aim of this article is to help 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 you may be required to comply with the terms of service of companies whose services or products you promote on your website

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

Consider for one minute what would happen to your business if the following incidents were to take place:

• A user has a heart attack after using your online fitness program.
• The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives people skin rashes.
• You’ve informed subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t clearly spelled out what you will do with their details.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their website.
• There is no statement on your website letting visitors know that you are promoting a product as an affiliate and may get paid an affiliate commission if visitors buy it.
• You have not spelled out the conditions of your return policies.
• Someone claims the testimonials on your site are false and decides to sue you as a result.
• You haven’t disclosed that you were given a free copy of a product you reviewed.
• Your site publishes adult content and you did not take sufficient measures to keep underage children from accessing it.

Consider also the following actual examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
• 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 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, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% had infringed 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 violation 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 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 easy it is to risk being exposed to non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Product Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

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

Complying With 3rd-Party Services

Big companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the importance of observing the terms and policies of third-party service providers.

You must let your site users know that your business complies will all legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also required in most cases by most companies you will interact with online.

For example:

Google requires websites to display legal information when using their products and service. This includes Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Monetizing your online properties with Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense - policy requirements)

And even promoting your services or products using Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell information products through merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will be required to add a number of legal pages before your products are approved for sale in their marketplace …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for digital product sellers)

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

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses 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 has already been the case, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any type of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. you should protect your business interests by ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC regulations.

A number of business resources provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …

(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These

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

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

• If you are not sure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or making money online with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or using 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 display on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
• If you have ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.

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

Common Legal Pages To Include In Your Website To Ensure Compliance

If your website or blog falls short in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.

Adding the following compliance pages to your website should help your business stay out of trouble with many consumer protection agencies and third-party providers, and avoid possible legal issues):

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

As well as the above pages, you may want to look into including any of these legal pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides advice about financial areas or income opportunities)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Audio/Video Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

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

• No Material Connection – Discloses to users that you are not receiving any form of compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Discloses to your readers that you may derive some form of financial benefit if they act on your recommendation and purchase through your affiliate link.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Lets your visitors be aware that you have received a review or sample copy of the product you’re writing about.
• Sponsored Post – Informs your readers that you were compensated in some way to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets readers 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.

Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this completed, 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 as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.

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

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

You can then easily add links to your legal pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Site

Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and clearly visible to all visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your site) to ensure that users will be able to access the information from all of your pages …

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

We have written a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your sidebar using widgets here:

• Adding WordPress Widgets To Your Blog

Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms – Legal forms)

To learn more, go here:

• FindLegalForms.com

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

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)

These templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with simple search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy
• 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 on your website 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 these to your web server as described previously.

Visit this website to learn more:

• Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

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

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

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages instead …

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

Some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages are:

• Pre-written Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. When a user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item is added to your main navigation section …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings Screen)

With WP Legal Pages, you can easily create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate websites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Page Type)

Choose from several built-in 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

To learn more about using this WordPress plugin, go here:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …

Go here to learn more about the plugin:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress 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 Service
• 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 site. Your legal pages can be 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 sites (even sites that you decide to sell).

Visit this site to learn more:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing some kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford legal services.

We want your business to be legally protected!

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

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to easily generate necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, 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 (or plan to), it’s important that your website complies with all government regulations and the guidelines and terms of service for third-party services and products that you may be promoting or endorsing online. If your website isn’t compliant 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, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements pertaining to your specific business.

Additional Resources

Here is a time-saving list of sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• 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
• United States Copyright Office

Also …

• Google 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 this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your website using simple and cost-effective methods and resources.

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