How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Is your website legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you use or recommend?

Online laws were designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells or promotes products or services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not protect someone from taking legal action against you.

New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, you must 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 (BBB). Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

These laws has legal consequences for various online business categories, including:

• Any type of advertising, including inline advertising, Google Adsense, etc.
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo will not approve digital products for sale, PayPal could suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could reject your web applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in many advertising or affiliate marketing networks.

You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.

In this article, we discuss the importance of having a compliant website and present simple and cost-effective ways to help make your WordPress website legally compliant quickly and easily.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice in this article. As previously stated, the purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations that govern business online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of companies whose services or products you use

The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Are you at risk? Consider what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• A user has a heart attack after they use your online fitness workout.
• The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link allergic reactions.
• You’ve told subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not spelled out exactly what you plan to do with their personal details.
• Someone copies your content and publishes it on their own website.
• There is no statement on your website letting visitors know that you are promoting a product as an affiliate that you may derive an affiliate commission if visitors buy it.
• You did not spell out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Visitors claim your testimonials are false and try to sue you.
• You did not disclose that you have received a free copy in a product review.
• Your site includes adult information and you did not take appropriate measures to restrict access by underage persons.

Consider now the documented examples of costly compliance breaches below:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up personal information to complete his offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, he is now required to give a copy of the judgement to everyone he does business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ 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% were in breach of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach of 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 with warnings or lose access to the Google program with the violation, 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, CPC or PPA Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Product Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

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

Complying With Third-Party Companies Terms And Policies

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

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

For example:

Google requires websites to display legal information when using their products. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Monetizing your site using Google AdSense online advertising …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your business via Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell information-based products using companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you are required to add legal pages to your site before your products can be approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for vendors using ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to display clear disclaimers and policy statements on your site, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(FTC – 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. A quick search online will reveal that many sites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this often ends up with 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 business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by ensuring that your website complies with FTC guidelines.

You can find many resources websites for businesses that can provide guidelines and examples 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 …

(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you are planning to develop applications for your website users, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others will require you to provide information about your legal pages …

(Social networking apps also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting products or services on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon ads, or use 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 all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
• If you’ve ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

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

Basic Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Website

If 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 site should help your business stay out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and external providers, and even help you avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):

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

In addition to the pages above, you may want to consider including any of the pages listed below:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general health or medical advice)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Media Terms (if you allow users to download media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

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

• No Material Connection – Disclosure that informs site users that you will not receive any type of compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Informs site users that you will receive compensation if they purchase through affiliate links on your site.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Lets readers be aware that you have received a review or sample copy of the product.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your visitors know that you have been compensated in some way to write the article.
• 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 website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you should consult a lawyer and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Website

If someone prepares and delivers 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 legals folder to your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. via FTP) …

(Upload legal pages to your server using FTP)

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

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Website

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly accessible to all visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer of your site) so that users have access to legal information from every page …

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

We have written a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your WordPress sidebar using widgets here:

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In The Website

Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

Go here for more details:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can download a package of website legal templates drafted by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Legal Form Templates)

These templates 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 Templates include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick 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 on your website for each legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your server as described earlier.

For more details, go here:

• Scott Talbert’s Legal Templates

Legal Page Plugins

As well as using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use plugins.

Here are some plugins for WordPress users that you may be interested in using:

WordPress Legal Pages

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider using WP Legal Pages …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you a great deal of time and effort.

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

• Built-in Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just 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, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like every other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed when user agrees to your terms.
• Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will appear in your main WordPress dashboard area …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)

You can create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, niche sites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal page types)

You can also select from a number of pre-configured legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages – 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

Visit this site to learn more this handy plugin:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

complete website compliance and disclaimer solution …

More info:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin 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 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them 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 plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

Go here to learn more:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing some kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford a lawyer.

We want your website to be protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal documentation, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

***

As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of business online, it’s important that your site complies with regulatory agencies and any terms of service and guidelines for 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or offering online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended 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, we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements pertaining to your business.

Legal Information

Below is a useful list of additional sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your site to comply and meet its legal obligations:

• Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• Better Business Bureau
• 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

See 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 legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your website using simple and inexpensive methods and resources.

***