How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Is your WordPress site legal? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you offer or recommend?

Online laws, regulations, and guidelines were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells or promotes goods or services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not prevent you from being slapped with a legal notice.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your site for commercial gain, you need to follow certain principles of disclosure 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 to learn more.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – Better Business Bureau)

The new laws affect several online business categories, including:

• Any form of advertising, including text link advertising, Google Adsense, etc.
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creators
• Blogging
• etc.

If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal could suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will reject your applications, and you won’t be allowed to enrol in a range of advertising and affiliate marketing networks.

You may 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 legal resources and solutions.

Is Your Website Or Blog Breaking The Law?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all laws and regulations wherever you do business.

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

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

• A person has a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness program.
• The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate gives a number of users skin rashes.
• You’ve informed your subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t clearly spelled out what you will do with their details.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their own website.
• There is no statement on your site making your visitors aware that you are recommending a product as an affiliate that you will derive a commission if visitors purchase it.
• You didn’t spell out the conditions of your refund policies.
• Someone claims that the testimonials on your site are false and tries to sue you as a result.
• You have not disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your site contains adult-related information and you did not take appropriate measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider also these actual examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information to complete his offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered to give everyone he does 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 without users’ 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 dollars in lost revenue.
• An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to be exposed to the risk of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

It’s vitally important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website or blog complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Complying With 3rd-Party Services Terms And Policies

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

You are obligated to let your visitors know that your website complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of most companies you will interact with.

Here are just some examples:

Google requires your site to display legal information when using many of their products. This includes Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Earning revenue with your blog with Google AdSense online advertising …

(Google AdSense display advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your services or products via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell digital products through places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …

(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to include clear disclaimers and statements to visitors, especially if you plan to sell or promote products and services with the aid of testimonials or product endorsements …

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many websites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this often prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any kind of business 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 site is compliant with FTC guidelines.

Various business resource sites provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See our additional 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)

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you plan to develop applications that will integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with access to your legal pages …

(Social networking apps also require compliance)

• If you are not sure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites 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 generating revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
• If you have ever wondered 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 interests.

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

Common Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Website To Ensure Compliance

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

Adding the following compliance pages to your website should help keep your business out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and external providers, and even help to avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):

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

Additionally, you may want to consider including one or more of these pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you promote or sell affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides financial content)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

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

• No Material Connection – Lets your visitors know that you are not receiving compensation for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Notifies your visitors that you may be compensated if they buy through your affiliate link.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets users know that you were compensated in some way to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets readers 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 online publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Content To Your Website

Ideally, you will consult lawyers or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Uploading Legal Pages Manually To Your Site

If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend creating a legal folder in your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory via FTP …

(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)

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

(Custom WordPress Menu)

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly accessible to visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the sidebar menu (or the footer section of your website) so that users will be able to access legal information from all of your pages …

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

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

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In The Sidebar Navigation Section

Legal Templates

You can easily find downloadable attorney-prepared forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting sites like the ones listed below:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

Go here for more details:

• FindLegalForms.com

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

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Legal Templates)

Cut & Paste website templates were created by an attorney and 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 business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.

The legal templates 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
• Privacy Policy
• ToS & Conditions of Use: includes inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.

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

For more details, go here:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

Legal Pages – Plugins

As well as using cut & paste templates, another option is to use a plugin.

Here are some legal WordPress plugins that you should check out:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If manually creating legal pages for your site seems too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will help make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you a great deal of time and effort.

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

• Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you will need in a few minutes with just 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!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages like any other WordPress page.
• Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages 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 page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed when users agree to your terms.
• New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will display inside your dashboard area …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)

Choose from various built-in legal templates …

(WP 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

To learn more about the benefits of using this plugin, visit the plugin website:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your website …

More info:

• Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)

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 & Conditions
• 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 plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites.

To learn more, visit this website:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring legal experts to create your legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire the services of a legal firm.

We want your site to be legally protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal content, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator lets you easily generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you do business online, it’s important that your website complies with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines required by third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or offer online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.

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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law regarding your specific business.

Additional Legal Information

Below is a time-saving list of sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• Federal Trade Commission 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
• US Copyright Office

See Also …

• 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 legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress website.

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