How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a business owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.

As the cybersphere continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s vital to try and stay informed about what’s going on and make sure that your website or blog remains legal, 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 websites state that if you promote anything on your website for material gain, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the (US based) BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The new laws has implications for several online business activities, including:

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

If you do not include certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enroll in most advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

If your online presence is not in compliance, you could face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your website(s) may be required to comply with legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern business practices online, the importance of complying with the terms of service of external providers whose products or services you may be advertising on your website, and that there are easy solutions that can help your websites become more compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all laws in your country or region.

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

Consider what could happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• A customer suffers a heart attack after using your online fitness program.
• The skin cream you promote as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link an allergic reaction.
• Your opt-in list displays a statement informing prospective subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you will do with their personal details.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their own site.
• There is no statement on your website letting your site visitors know that you are recommending a product as an affiliate and will earn a sales commission if visitors buy it.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
• Someone claims the testimonials on your site are fake and decides to sue you as a result.
• You didn’t disclose that you were given a free copy of the product you reviewed.
• Your site publishes adult information and you did not take sufficient measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.

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

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information to complete his offer. In addition to a significant $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 received a whopping $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 users from scraping UIDs. 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 independently-conducted 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% had broken 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 to the Google program whose policies with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how a business owner can easily become exposed to the risks of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

it’s important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business has the right legal pages and clearly displayed to site visitors.

Complying With 3rd-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.

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

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

Here are just some examples:

Google requires your site to display certain information when using many of their services. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Generating revenue with your sites using Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)

And even promoting your site through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information-based products with places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will be required to add a number of legal pages to your site before your products are approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for selling via ClickBank)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially if you plan to sell or promote products online with the aid of product testimonials or endorsements …

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any type 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 interests by making sure that your site is compliant with FTC regulations and guidelines.

You can find many sites that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you plan to create apps for your site, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others require you to provide access to your legal pages …

(Apps that interface with social networks also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting anything on your site via affiliate marketing, or make money online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon ads, 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 include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts terminated.
• If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.

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

What Compliance Information Pages Do I Need To Add To My Site To Be Compliant?

If you suspect that your web site lacks in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

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

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

As well as the above, you may want to look into implementing one or more of these compliance pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you promote or sell affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (if your website provides health or medical advice)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Media Terms (if you provide users with access to download videos or audio files on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding correct disclosure information to your website is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets visitors know that you will not be receiving any kind of payment for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Informs visitors that you may receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and buy through affiliate links on your site.
• Sample/Review Copy – Lets your readers be aware that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about.
• Sponsored Post – Lets your visitors know that you were compensated in some way to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs your visitors 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.

Adding Legal Content To Your Site

Ideally, you will consult your lawyer and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this completed, 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 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 legals folder to your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …

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

You can then add links to these legal pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu admin area …

(WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Site

Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and display clearly to your visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the sidebar (or place them in the footer of your website) to ensure that users will be able to access the information from every page …

(It’s important to display legal pages to users on all of your website’s pages)

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

• Configuring Widgets On The WordPress Sidebar

Legal Templates

You can easily find attorney-prepared downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or going to websites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

Visit this site to learn more:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to purchase a set of website legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website templates were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your legal pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new Federal Trade Commission guidelines brought into effect in March 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.

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

Go here for more details:

• Website Legal Pages

Legal Pages – Plugins

In addition to using copy & paste templates, you can simplify things using a plugin.

Here are some WordPress plugins worth looking into:

WP 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 a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …

This plugin is not free, but it’s an affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site much easier and save you time.

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

• Pre-written Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you will need in a few minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit all legal pages like any other WP page.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any other WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When users agree to the terms, the page unlocks.
• Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will appear in your main WordPress dashboard section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Screen)

With WPLegal Pages, you can easily create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, review websites, medical sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal pages)

Choose from a number of pre-configured legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages – 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 this useful plugin, go here:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin

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

For more details go here:

• 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 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites.

For more information, visit this website:

• Legal Suite Pro

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

We want your business to be legally 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 documentation, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to easily generate necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

***

As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) of 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or advertise online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect consumer rights, 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we provide no legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.

Additional Resources

Here is a time-saving list of websites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to comply and meet legal obligations:

• 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
• US Patent and Trademark Office
• US Copyright Office

In Addition …

• Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
• Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
• Google 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 all necessary legal pages to your website.

***