How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.

As the digital way of life continues to grow at an overwhelming speed and the rules constantly change, it’s absolutely vital that you stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your web 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 site for material gain, then 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). Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Better Business Bureau Website)

These laws has consequences for several online business activities, including:

• Any kind of advertising, including Google AdWords
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creators
• Blogging
• etc.

If your site does not display certain pages to visitors (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 won’t allow you to list digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account, Facebook will disapprove your web applications, and you will not be allowed into a number of advertising and online merchant networks.

If you are not compliant, you could face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

This article explains the importance of having a legally compliant website and how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website.

Is Your Website Or Blog Breaking Rules Or Regulations?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice. As stated earlier, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws governing business online and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of providers whose products or services you recommend

The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Are you at risk? Consider for one minute what the implications to your business would be if any of these situations were to take place:

• A customer suffers a heart attack after using your online fitness workout.
• The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate gives people skin rashes.
• You’ve told subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you’ll do with the details you’ve collected.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their site.
• There is no statement on your website making visitors aware that you are marketing a product as an affiliate and may earn a financial benefit if they buy products via your affiliate link.
• You have not spelled out the conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Your visitors claim the testimonials on your site are all fake and decide to sue you as a result.
• You have not disclosed that you were given a free copy in your product review.
• Your site includes adult-related information and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.

Consider too the following real case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes 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 independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% were in violation 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 breached 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 with warnings or lose access entirely 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 you could become exposed to the risk of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdWords User
• Product Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

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

Compliance With 3rd-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.

Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade in many countries emphasize the need of complying with the terms and policies of third-party service providers.

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

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires you to display legal information when using their services. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Monetizing your WordPress blogs with Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)

Or promoting your site via Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

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

(Policy requirements product vendors selling through ClickBank)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to add clear disclaimers and statements to visitors, especially when using testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business 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 for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to 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 by ensuring that your website is compliant with FTC regulations and guidelines.

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

(You must word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you plan to develop social networking applications that will integrate with your website, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others will require you to provide access to your legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure as to whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting anything online using affiliate marketing, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, 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 need to display on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
• If you have ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.

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

Common Legal Pages To Add To Your Site To Ensure Compliance

If you suspect that your website is lacking in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website should help your website keep out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and 3rd-party providers, and even help to avoid potential legal issues):

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

In addition to the above pages, you may want to look into including one or more of these pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general advice about financial areas or money-making opportunities)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Video/Audio Terms (if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the correct type of content disclosure is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs site users that you’re not receiving compensation for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Discloses to your visitors that you will benefit financially if they buy through your affiliate link.
• Sample/Review Copy – Disclosure that informs visitors that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Discloses to users that you have been compensated in some way to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets your visitors 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.

How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Website

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

Upload Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Website

If someone prepares and delivers 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 legals directory on your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory using FTP …

(Upload legal pages to your server using FTP)

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

(WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website

Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and display clearly to all visitors. You can insert these into your sidebar menu (or the footer section of your website) to ensure that users will be able to access the information from every web page …

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

We have created a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your WP sidebar here:

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To Your Site

Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)

More info:

• FindLegalForms.com

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

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with simple search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your legal web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new Federal Trade Commission regulations brought into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service (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 every legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as previously described.

More info:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates

WordPress Legal Plugins

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

Here are some WordPress plugins worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing WP Legal Pages …

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

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

• Pre-written Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you will need in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information will then be 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 every other WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks only when users agree to your legal terms.
• Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will display inside your main navigation section …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)

This lets you view, create and edit 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, niche websites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Type of Site menu)

Select from a number of built-in legal templates …

(WordPress 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 powerful plugin, visit the plugin website:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …

For more details go here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)

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 Plugin – 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 powered site. You can have legal pages 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 this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).

More information:

• Legal Suite Pro

If using the services of legal experts to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford a solicitor.

We want your business to be protected!

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

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to quickly 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 are making money online, you need to make sure that your website stays compliant with all government laws and regulations and any guidelines and terms of service provided by third-party services and products that you may be promoting or using online. Your internet presence must comply with numerous laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not be aware of.

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 do not provide legal advice in this article. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.

References And Resources

Here is a time-saving list of sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your website may require to remain compliant and meet legal requirements and guidelines:

• Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• FTC 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

Additionally …

• Google 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

We hope this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website.

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