How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

If you plan to grow a successful business online, you do not want to find yourself on the wrong side of the law.

As the digital economy continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules keep changing, it’s important to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if having an online presence is an integral factor in your business strategy.

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

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

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

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

If your site does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal could suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could reject your web applications, and you won’t be allowed into most advertising or online merchant networks.

If your digital presence is not compliant, you could also end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this post is to make you aware that your website are subject to legal requirements according to laws that govern online businesses, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of external providers whose products or services you may be selling on your website, and that there are solutions for WordPress that can help your website become more compliant, such as the plugins that we list further below.

Does Your Site Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice in this article. As stated above, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern business online and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party providers whose services or products you offer on your website

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 any of the following situations were to take place:

• A person suffers a heart attack after they use your online fitness workout.
• The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate gives a number of users allergic reactions.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement that lets subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not described exactly what you will do with the information you have collected.
• Someone copies content from your website and puts it up on their website.
• There is no statement on your website letting your visitors know that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re selling that you could earn financial benefits if they decide to buy through your link.
• You didn’t spell out the terms of your refund policies.
• Your visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are fake and try to sue you.
• You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your website includes adult-related content and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underage children from accessing it.

Consider now these documented case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card info to complete his offer. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered to give 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 massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private information.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independent 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 infringed at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 a target of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA or PPA Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdWords Advertiser
• Info Product Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

It’s imperative to ensure that your website or blog has the right legal pages and information displayed to your site visitors.

Complying With 3rd-Party Companies Terms And Policies

Complying with third-party services terms and policies is important.

You must let your visitors know that your website complies with legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your website, it’s also required in most cases by most companies you will engage with.

Here are just some examples:

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

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Generating revenue online with your WordPress site with Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your products or services using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information products through merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you are required to add a number of legal pages to your website before your products are approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank digital product vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and policy statements on your website, especially when using testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this often results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

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

There are many resources online that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See the references and resources section at the end of this article for more information …

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

Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These

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

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
• If you’ve been wondering 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 websites require you to comply with their terms of use)

Essential Legal Pages To Include In Your Site

If your web site falls short in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website should help your business stay out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and third-party service providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues):

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

Additionally, you may want to consider including any of the pages listed below where applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides financial advice)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Video/Audio Terms (if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

It’s important to add the right disclosure information to your website. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets your visitors be aware that you will not receive for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Lets readers be aware that you may receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and buy through affiliate links on your site.
• Review/Sample Copy – Lets site users be aware that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service.
• Sponsored Post – Discloses to readers that you were 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 online publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Compliance Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you will consult your lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been done, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site

If someone prepares the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend adding a legal directory to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory via FTP …

(Upload legal pages to your server using FTP)

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

(WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly visible to your visitors. You can add these to your sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your site) so that users can access the information from every web page …

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

For a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar menu, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• Adding WordPress Widgets To Your Blog Sidebar

Templates

You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and website forms and agreements by searching online, or visiting websites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

Go here for more details:

• Find Legal Forms – Legal forms

Alternatively, you can purchase a package of cut & paste legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)

Cut & Paste website legal pages 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 web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy
• ToS & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new WordPress page for every legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your server as previously described.

More information:

• Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates

Legal Pages – Plugins

In addition to using legal templates, you can simplify things by using WordPress plugins.

Here are some plugins for WordPress-driven websites that you should check out:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If manually setting up legal pages for your site feels too time-consuming for you, then consider using WP Legal Pages …

WordPress Legal Pages 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 site much easier and save you time.

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

• Pre-written Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other WordPress page.
• Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content when published.
• 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 or post lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when users agree to your terms.
• Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will display inside your main dashboard area …

(WP Legal Pages – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings Area)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)

Choose from a number of built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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

For more details about using this WordPress plugin, visit the plugin website:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users containing over 20 customizable legal templates for your digital business …

More info:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro)

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. 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 this plugin on all of your websites.

More information:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing some type of basic legal protection on your website until you can afford a lawyer.

We want your business to be legally safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (it’s FREE!), or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal page templates, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

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

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do business online, it’s important that your website remains compliant with all government legal requirements and any terms of service and guidelines for 3rd-party services and products that you may be promoting or selling online. Your internet presence must comply with a whole set of regulations, many 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.

Resources

Here is a time-saving list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what may be required of your site to stay compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• FTC 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

Additionally …

• 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 why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress site using inexpensive methods, resources and plugins.

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