How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

One of the worst situations 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 overwhelming speed and rules keep changing, it’s vitally important that you stay on top of what’s happening and ensure that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your online presence is important in the success of your business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for material gain, you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

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

• Any type of advertising, like pay-per-click advertising
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creation
• Blogging
• etc.

If your site does not display certain pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to participate in a range of advertising and affiliate marketing networks.

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

In this guide, we look at why it’s important to have a compliant website and list inexpensive methods and solutions to make your website or blog legally compliant quickly and easily.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice on this website. Do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations in your country or region.

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

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

• A user suffers a cardiac arrest after using your online workout program.
• The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link allergic reactions.
• Your opt-in list displays a statement informing prospective subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you plan to do with it.
• Someone copies your content and publishes it on their own site.
• There is no statement on your website letting your visitors know that you are recommending a product as an affiliate that you may earn financial benefits if they purchase via your link.
• You didn’t spell out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
• A visitor claims your testimonials are false and decides to sue you as a result.
• You did not disclose that you received a free copy in a product review.
• Your website contains adult-related content and you have not taken appropriate measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider too these actual examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information to complete his offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, they’re now required to provide a copy of the judgement to everyone they do business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• A social networking app developer copped a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ 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, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

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

Regardless of whether you are a:

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

it’s important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business remains fully compliant with the law.

Complying With Third-Party Companies

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

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

For example:

Google requires your site to display legal information when using many of their services or product features. This includes using features like Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Generating revenue with your WordPress blogs with Google AdSense online advertising …

(Google AdSense ads - 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 merchant sites, you will need to add various legal pages before your products are approved for sale …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for digital product sellers)

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

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Website 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 still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, this will most likely prompt 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 type of money-making activity 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 interests by making sure that your site is compliant with all FTC regulations.

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

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

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

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

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure as to whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers 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, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to provide on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts terminated.
• If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.

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

Basic Legal Pages To Add To Your Website To Ensure Compliance

If your web site is falling short in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

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

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

In addition to the above, you may want to look into implementing any of the pages listed below:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general content about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Audio/Video Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

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

• No Material Connection – Informs users that you are not being paid for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets users know that you may receive compensation if they buy through an affiliate link.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Informs users that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Lets readers know that you have been compensated in some form to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs users 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 Content To Your Website

Ideally, you should have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Upload Legal Pages Manually

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

We recommend creating a legals folder on your server and uploading your legal pages to this directory (e.g. via FTP) …

(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)

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

(WordPress Menu)

Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and clearly visible to all visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your sidebar (or the footer of your website or blog) to ensure that visitors will be able to access the information from all of your pages …

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

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

• Adding WordPress Widgets To The Sidebar

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)

More information:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can download a set of website legal templates drafted by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website legal templates were written 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 details, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.

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

Go here for more info:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates

Plugins – Legal Pages

As well as using legal templates, you can simplify things using a plugin.

Here are some WordPress plugins you may be interested in checking out:

WordPress Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If the idea of setting up legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider installing WP Legal Pages instead …

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

Some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages plugin are:

• Pre-written Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the basic legal pages you need in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other WP page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. 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 when the user agrees to your legal terms.
• New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will be added to your main WordPress dashboard menu section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)

Choose from various built-in legal templates …

(WP 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

Go here to learn more this plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users that contains over 20 customizable compliance templates for your digital business …

More info:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

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 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 powered site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites.

Go here to learn more:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring legal experts to create your legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford a lawyer.

We want your site to be legally protected!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal page templates, or a WordPress legal pages plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do any type of business online, you need to make sure that your website is compliant with government regulations and the terms of service and guidelines required by 3rd-party sites that you may decide to promote or recommend online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements regarding your specific business.

Additional Legal Information

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

• Federal Trade Commission 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 – 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
• US Patent and Trademark Office
• US Copyright Office

Plus …

• 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 why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add essential legal pages to your WordPress website.

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