How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

As a business owner, the last thing you want to do is to learn the hard way that you are doing something illegal.

As the digital economy continues growing at such a fast pace and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vital to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your online presence plays a significant part in your overall business strategy.

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

(Better Business Bureau Website)

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

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

If your site does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t approve digital products for sale, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could reject web applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in various advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

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

The purpose of this post is to help make you aware that your website(s) are subject to certain legal requirements, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of external providers whose products or services you may be offering on your website, and that there are plugin-based solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your online properties become compliant, such as the tools listed further below.

Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice in this article. As stated previously, the aim of this article is to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with the laws governing your business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of companies whose products or services you endorse

The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Is your business at risk? Consider for a minute what the implications to your business would be if these situations were to take place:

• A customer suffers a heart attack after using your online fitness workout.
• The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link an adverse reaction.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not defined what you will do with their personal details.
• Someone copies your content and publishes it on their site.
• You haven’t advised your site users that you’re an affiliate for the product you are selling that you could earn a sales commission if visitors buy it.
• You did not spell out the conditions of your refund or return policies.
• Someone claims the testimonials on your site are fake and decides to sue you as a result.
• You did not disclose that you have received a free copy in your product review.
• Your site contains adult information and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged children.

Consider now the following actual examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, they’re now required to give everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• A social networking app developer copped a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
• 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 $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 notices or lose access entirely to the Google program with the violation, 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:

• CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdWords User
• Niche Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

You need to ensure that your online business remains fully compliant with the law.

Compliance With Third-Party Services

Big companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.

You are expected to let your site visitors know that your website complies with legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also required by most companies you engage with.

For example:

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

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Generating revenue with your sites using Google AdSense online advertising …

(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)

Or promoting your products or services through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information-based products via merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you are required to add certain legal pages before your products are approved for sale …

(Policy requirements digital product vendors selling via ClickBank)

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

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

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 unaware (or choose to ignore) 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 type of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by ensuring that your website complies with all FTC guidelines and regulations.

You can find many online business resources that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references at the end of this article …

(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 apps for your site users, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others require you to provide information about various legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure as to whether or not you may be 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 products or services online as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
• If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)

Basic Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Website To Ensure Compliance

If you suspect that your web site is falling short in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website should help keep you out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and external service providers, and avoid possible legal issues):

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

In addition to the pages above, you may want to consider including one or more of these compliance pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (if your website provides advice about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you provide users with access to download media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

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

• No Material Connection – This lets your visitors be aware that you will not receive any type of compensation for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Discloses to site users that you may be compensated if they purchase through one of your affiliate links.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Informs users 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 – Lets your readers know that you have been compensated in some way to write the post.
• 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 website publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Content To Your Site

Ideally, you will consult your lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once these have been done, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Website

If someone prepares the legal content for you in typical web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend creating a legals directory in your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder via FTP …

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

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

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site

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

(Display links to your legal pages to users on all of your site’s pages)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar or footer, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:

• How To Add Widgets To The WordPress Sidebar

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

More information:

• Find Legal Forms – Attorney-drafted legal forms

Another option is to download a package of cut and paste legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines brought into effect on March 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, 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 every 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 described earlier.

For more details, visit this website:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using templates, you can keep things very simple using a plugin.

Here are some great plugins for WordPress-powered websites and blogs worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If the idea of manually creating legal pages for your site 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 premium WordPress plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you time.

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

• Pre-written Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like any other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your 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 lockdown. When the user agrees to your terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear in your main navigation section …

(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, review websites, medical sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Page Type)

You can also select from several pre-configured legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Built-In 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 for more details about the benefits of using this plugin:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs with over 20 customizable legal page templates for your digital business …

Learn more about the plugin here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)

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 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. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites.

For more details, visit this website:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

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

We want your business to be safe!

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

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to easily generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, 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, it’s important that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service of third-party sites that you may decide to promote or use online. Your digital presence must comply with numerous regulations, some of which you may not even be aware of.

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 cannot offer legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.

Additional Legal Information

Below is a useful list of sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website to remain compliant and meet 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
• Better Business Bureau – 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
• US Copyright Office

And …

• 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

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add essential legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple and cost-effective methods and resources.

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