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 cybersphere continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s important to try and stay on top of what’s going on and ensure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your web presence is important in the success of your overall business strategy.

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

(Better Business Bureau Website)

The new laws affect several business activities, including:

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

Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account, Facebook will disapprove your applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in many advertising and affiliate marketing networks.

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

The purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your website are subject to legal requirements according to laws that govern online businesses, the importance of complying with the terms of service of other providers whose products or services you may be using on your website, and that there are plugin-based solutions for WordPress that can help your sites become fully compliant, such as the plugins discussed further below.

Does Your Site Comply With The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. As stated above, the purpose of this article is only to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws governing business practices online and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of providers whose products or services you promote

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• Someone has a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness program.
• The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link an adverse reaction.
• You’ve told your subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you will do with their details.
• Someone copies content from your site and puts it up on their website.
• There is no statement on your website or blog letting your visitors know that you are an affiliate for the product you’re marketing and may derive an affiliate commission if they purchase via your affiliate link.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
• Your visitors claim your testimonials are fake and decide to sue you as a result.
• You didn’t disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your website includes adult content and you have not taken appropriate measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider now these documented examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information (including credit card info to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer copped a whopping $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 Users IDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had broken 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 they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how you could easily be exposed to the risk of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdWords Advertiser
• Product Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

It’s vitally important to ensure that your online business complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Complying With Third-Party Services

Leading online companies and government trade regulatory agencies emphasize the importance of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.

You must let your site visitors know that your business complies will all laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also required by most companies you engage with.

Here are just some examples:

Google requires you to display certain information when using their services or features. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Generating revenue with your website with Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense policy requirements)

And even promoting your services or products via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell products online via merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will be required to add a number of legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …

(Policy requirements for selling through ClickBank)

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

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant

New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this often prompts 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 kind of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your site complies with FTC regulations and guidelines.

There are many online resources that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. See the references and useful resources section at the end of this article for more information …

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

Social Media Applications Also Require Compliance

If you plan to develop applications that integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with information about various legal pages …

(Apps for social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)

• If you are not sure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting products or services online using affiliate marketing, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to include on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
• If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.

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

Essential Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Site

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

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website will help keep your business out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and third-party service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):

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

Additionally, you may want to look into adding any of the pages listed below where applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides financial advice)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

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

• No Material Connection – This lets your visitors know that you will not receive any kind of payment for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you may receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and purchase through one of your affiliate links.
• Sample/Review Copy – Lets visitors know that you have received a review or sample copy of the product by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Lets users be aware that you were compensated in some form to write the post.
• 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Content To Your Website

Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Website

If someone prepares the legal verbiage 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 legal directory to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …

(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)

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

(WordPress Menu)

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

(It’s important to display links to your legal pages on all of your site’s pages)

We have created a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer menu using widgets here:

• How To Add Widgets To Your WordPress Blog Sidebar Section

Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms – Attorney-drafted legal forms)

For more information, go here:

• Find Legal Forms

Alternatively, you can download a package of legal templates drafted 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 easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
• ToS & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new page for every legal form you want added 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 to learn more:

• Website Legal Pages

WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages

In addition to using legal templates, another option is to use plugins.

Here are some WordPress plugins that you should check out:

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If creating legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider installing WP Legal Pages …

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

Some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages plugin are:

• Built-in Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal page 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 a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any WP page.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information is then 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 – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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 online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate sites, medical sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Page Type)

You can also select from several built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Pre-configured 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 the plugin site to learn more about this useful plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

total website compliance and disclaimer solution …

Go here to learn more:

• Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro)

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 of Use
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro – 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. 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 sites.

To learn more, visit this website:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring lawyers to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire a solicitor.

We want your site to be legally safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal templates, or a WordPress plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to easily generate essential 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 any kind of business online, it’s important that your site stays compliant with government legal requirements and the terms of service and guidelines of 3rd-party products and services that you may decide to promote or sell online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect the rights of 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 do not offer legal advice here. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.

References And Legal Resources

Here is a time-saving list of websites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your site may require to remain compliant and meet 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

Also …

• 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 provided above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using inexpensive methods, resources and plugins.

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