How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

As a website owner, the last thing you want to do is to find out that you have broken any rules or regulations.

Internet laws, regulations, and guidelines were designed to protect consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes products or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements will not prevent you from being slapped with a legal notice.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, then you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau, also called the BBB. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)

The introduction of these new laws affect various business categories, including:

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

If your website does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will disapprove web applications, and you will not be allowed to promote most advertising or affiliate marketing networks.

If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this guide is to help make you aware that your website or blog(s) are required to comply with various legalities, the importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be endorsing online, and that there are easy solutions that can help your sites become fully compliant, such as the plugins discussed further below.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. As previously stated, 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 online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of companies whose products or services you use on your website

Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important

Consider what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• A customer suffers a heart attack after they use your online fitness program.
• The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone skin rashes.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you will do with their details.
• Someone copies content from your site and publishes it on their own website.
• There is no statement on your website making your site visitors aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re promoting and could receive a sales commission if visitors purchase it.
• You don’t spell out the terms of your refund and return policies.
• Online visitors claim the testimonials on your site are misleading and decide to sue you.
• You have not disclosed that you were given a free copy in your product review.
• Your site contains adult content and you didn’t take appropriate measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider also 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 (including credit card information 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 private details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping Users IDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 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% had broken 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 cautions or lose access to the Google program they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming a target of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Info Product Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

it’s important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your digital presence has the right legal pages and information displayed to all site users.

Complying With Third-Party Services

Compliance with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.

You are expected to let your visitors know that your business complies with all necessary laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your site, it’s also required by most companies you interact with.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires your site to display certain information when using their services. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Earning revenue online with your blog with Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense online advertising - policy requirements)

Or promoting your products via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell products online through places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add various legal pages before your products are approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for selling products through ClickBank)

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

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As documented on their website, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your website complies with all FTC guidelines.

You can find many resources online that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …

(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Applications Also Have Compliance Requirements

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

(Apps for social networks also require compliance)

• If you are unsure as to whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything online via affiliate marketing, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, 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 their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
• If you have ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

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

Essential Legal Pages To Include In Your Website

If you suspect that your website or blog falls short in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

Adding the following legal pages to your website will help keep you out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and 3rd-party providers, and avoid possible legal issues):

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

In addition to the above pages, you may want to consider implementing one or more of these pages:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides content about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

It’s important to add the right disclosures to your site. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets visitors know that you will not receive any kind of compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Lets your readers be aware that you will benefit financially if they buy through your affiliate link.
• Sample/Review Copy – Discloses to readers that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product you’re reviewing by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Lets your readers know that you were compensated in some way to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs your visitors that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to satisfy the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring website publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Compliance Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you will consult lawyers 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.

Uploading Legal Pages Manually To Your Website

If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in typical web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.

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

(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your web server and upload pages via FTP)

You can then add links to these legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …

(WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Web Pages On Your Site

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and display clearly to all visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your sidebar menu (or the footer of your website or blog) to ensure that visitors have access to the information from every web page …

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

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

• Using Widgets

Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

Go here to learn more:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to download a package of cut and paste legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(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 search and replace to add your own business 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
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new FTC guidelines that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new WordPress 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 server as described earlier.

Visit this site to learn more:

• Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Templates

Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use a plugin.

Here are some WordPress plugins worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WP Legal Pages …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably affordable and well-supported plugin that will help make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your site 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 Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages just like every other WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• 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 or post lockdown. When a user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)

You can easily create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate/review websites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Page type drop down menu)

Choose from various pre-written legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Built-In 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 handy plugin, go here:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

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

Learn more about this plugin here:

• Compliance Bar – 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 of Service
• 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. You can have legal pages 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 using the services of lawyers to create your legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford a solicitor.

We want your site to be legally safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, 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 Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to easily generate basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site complies with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) for 3rd-party services and products that you may be promoting or recommending online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumer rights, 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 are not providing legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with the law in your country or region.

Additional Information

Below is a time-saving list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your website may require to remain compliant and meet its legal obligations:

• Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• FTC 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
• 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 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 inexpensive methods, resources and plugins.

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