How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

One of the worst situations a business owner can find themselves in is to be on the wrong side of the law.

As the digital way of life continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s going on and ensure that your website remains compliant, especially if having an online presence is important in the success of your business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau (BBB). Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The new laws has legal ramifications for several business categories, including:

• Any form of advertising, e.g. PPC advertising
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could close down your account, Facebook could disapprove web applications, and you will not be allowed to enroll in a number of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.

In addition, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.

This article explains why it’s important to have a compliant website and how to quickly add legal pages to your site using inexpensive methods and resources.

Is Your Site Legally Compliant?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based in.

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Are you at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• Someone suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
• The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate gives people allergic reactions.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement informing prospective subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you have not informed them exactly what you’ll do with their personal details.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their own site.
• There is no statement on your site informing visitors that you’re an affiliate for the product you are promoting that you will derive a sales commission if visitors purchase it.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
• Someone claims that your testimonials are misleading and tries to sue you.
• You have not disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
• Your site publishes adult content and you did not take appropriate measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider too these actual 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 information to complete an offer they were promoting. 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 prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. 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 independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation of 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 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 you could easily become exposed to the risks of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdWords Advertiser
• Niche Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

You need to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business is fully compliant with the law.

Complying With 3rd-Party Companies

Complying with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.

You are obligated to let your site visitors know that your business complies will all legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your business, it’s also required by most companies you will do business with online.

Here are just some examples:

Google requires you to display certain information if using many of their products. This includes using features like Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Making money online with your WordPress sites using Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense policy requirements)

And even promoting your site using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell digital products through places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add a number of legal pages before your products are approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for vendors using ClickBank)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to add clear disclaimers and policies on your site, especially when using product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply

New 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 is already the case, this often results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any kind of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC regulations.

Various online resources provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These

If you are planning to create social networking applications for your website, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others will require you to provide access to various legal pages …

(Facebook apps also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything online via affiliate marketing, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
• If you have been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.

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

What Legal Pages Do You Need To Add To Your Site 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 help keep you out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and external providers, and avoid potential legal issues):

• 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 consider implementing one or more of these legal pages where applicable:

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

Types Of Disclosure Pages

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

• No Material Connection – This lets users be aware that you will not receive any form of payment for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors know that you may derive some form of financial or similar form of benefit if they purchase through your affiliate link.
• Sample/Review Copy – Lets visitors be aware that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re writing about by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Discloses to your visitors that you have been compensated in some form to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs readers 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.

How To Add Legal Content To Your Site

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

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually

If someone prepares the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web 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 directory (e.g. using FTP) …

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

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

(WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Website

Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and clearly visible to visitors. You can add these to the sidebar menu (or the footer section of your website) to ensure that visitors can access the information from all your pages …

(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 and footer using widgets, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In The Blog

Ready-Made Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

For more information, go here:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to download a package of cut and paste legal templates drafted by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)

These legal templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your legal web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new FTC regulations and guidelines brought into effect on March 2012)
• 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 website, 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 for more info:

• Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using templates, you can keep things very simple by using WordPress plugins.

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

WordPress Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

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

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

Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages:

• Pre-written Templates – 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 around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and completely 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 just like any WP page.
• Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any other WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When users agree to your terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

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

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

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Page type dropdown menu)

Choose from various 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

Visit this site to learn more about using this great plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users that contains over twenty customizable compliance page templates for your digital presence …

More info:

• Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)

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 And 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 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 this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

For more details, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring legal experts to create your legal documentation is out of your budget, 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 business to be safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal page templates, or a legal pages plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do business online (or plan 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 be promoting or selling online. Your website must comply with a number of regulations, some of which you may not be aware of.

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?

Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law pertaining to your business.

Additional Resources

Below is a time-saving list of sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website to remain compliant and meet its legal obligations:

• FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• BBB – 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

Additionally …

• 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
• 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 presented above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your website or blog using inexpensive methods and resources.

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