How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

One of the worst things that can happen to you as a business owner is to break the law.

As digital business continues growing at breakneck speed and rules keep changing, it’s vital to try and stay informed about what’s happening and ensure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if having a digital presence is a significant factor in your overall business strategy.

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

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

The new laws affect several online business categories, including:

• Any form of advertising, e.g. contextual advertising
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creation
• Blogging
• 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 like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you will not be accepted into a number of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.

If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could also end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

In this article, we discuss why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog.

Does Your Site Comply With The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice on this website. As previously stated, the aim of this article is to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws that govern your business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of 3rd-party companies whose products or services you use on your website

The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Consider what would happen to your business if any of these scenarios were to take place:

• Someone suffers a heart attack after they use your online fitness program.
• The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate gives people skin rashes.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t clearly informed them what you’ll do with their personal details.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their own website.
• There is no statement on your site making your site users aware that you are promoting a product as an affiliate that you will derive a financial benefit if visitors purchase it.
• You don’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Online visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are false and try to sue you.
• You didn’t disclose that you were given a free copy of a product in your review.
• Your site publishes adult information and you didn’t take sufficient measures to keep underaged persons 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 be required to give up personal information (including credit card info to complete his offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, he is now required to issue 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 massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 whose policies they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

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

Regardless of whether you are a:

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

It’s imperative to make sure that your online business complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Compliance With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.

Compliance with third-party services terms and policies is important.

You are obligated to let your visitors know that your website complies will all legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your site, it’s also required in many cases by most companies you interact with online.

For example:

Google requires your site to display certain information if using many of their services or features. This includes Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Monetizing your sites using Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

Or promoting your products through Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell digital products using merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you are required to add legal pages before your products can be approved for sale in their networks …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for product sellers)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this typically 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 money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by ensuring that your website complies with all FTC regulations.

Various online business resources provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …

(It’s important to structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you are planning to create social networking applications that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with access to various legal pages …

(Apps for social networks also require compliance)

• If you are not sure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything online using affiliate marketing, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
• If you have been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.

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

Common Legal Pages To Include In Your Website

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

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

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

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

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general health or medical content)
• 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)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

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

• No Material Connection – Informs your visitors that you will not receive for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Informs your visitors that you will derive some form of financial benefit if they act on your recommendation and purchase through one of your affiliate links.
• Review/Sample Copy – Lets your readers know that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets readers know that you were compensated in some form to write the post.
• 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Content To Your Website

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

Uploading Legal Web 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 legal folder in your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder via FTP …

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

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

(WordPress Menu)

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to all visitors. You can add these to your sidebar menu (or place them in the footer of your website) to ensure that users have access to legal information from all pages …

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

If you need help displaying links to pages on your sidebar using widgets, refer to this tutorial:

• How To Add And Configure Widgets On The Sidebar

Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

Go here for more information:

• Find Legal Forms

Alternatively, you can purchase a package of cut & paste website legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your web pages.

The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Pages include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates Federal Trade Commission regulations that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• ToS & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new page on your website 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 these to your server as previously described.

More information:

• Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Page Templates

Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using copy & paste templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use WordPress plugins.

Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress-driven websites that you should check out:

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal pages manually, then consider installing WordPress Legal Pages …

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s an affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your website a lot easier and save you loads of headaches.

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

• Built-in Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other page on your website.
• Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When a user agrees to the terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• New Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Screen)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, niche websites, medical sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Type of Site menu)

Choose from various built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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 about using this powerful plugin, visit this site:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress websites and blogs that includes over 20 customizable legal templates for your digital presence …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(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 & 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 license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

More information:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance.

We want your site to be 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 legal templates, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator quickly generates necessary 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 engage in any form of commercial activity online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) provided by 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or offer online. Your website or blog must comply with a wide range of regulations, some of which you may not even be aware of.

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?

Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law in your country or region.

Resources

Below is a time-saving list of additional sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your site 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
• Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB
• 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

In Addition …

• 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 all necessary legal pages to your website or blog.

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