How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Is your WordPress site legal? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you do business with?

Online laws and regulations are designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes products and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t prevent someone from taking legal action against you.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website for commercial gain, you 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 referred to as the BBB. Do a search online for “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 new laws affect various business categories, including:

• Any form of advertising, like Google AdWords
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

If you do not include certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal could close down your account, Facebook could reject web applications, and you will not be allowed into various advertising and affiliate marketing networks.

Plus, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.

This article explains why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and how to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress website.

Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?

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

Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important

Are you at risk? Consider for a moment what could happen to your business if any of the scenarios below were to occur:

• A customer suffers a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness program.
• The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users skin rashes.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement informing subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t clearly spelled out what you plan to do with the details you have collected.
• Someone steals content from your website and puts it up on their site.
• There is no statement on your site making visitors aware that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate and could earn a financial benefit if visitors buy products via your link.
• You don’t spell out the conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Online visitors claim that your testimonials are misleading and try to sue you because of it.
• You didn’t disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
• Your website publishes adult content and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.

Consider now the documented case studies of costly compliance breaches listed below:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, they’re now required to provide everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• A social networking app developer received 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 UIDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 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% had breached at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach of 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 to the Google program with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how a business owner can easily become exposed to the risk of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Product Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

You need to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business stays fully compliant with the law.

Complying With Third-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.

Big companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.

You must let your site visitors know that your business complies with all necessary laws and professional guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also required by most companies you do business with.

For example:

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

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Earning revenue with your website using Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense online advertising policy requirements)

And even promoting your business through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell products online through companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will be required to add certain legal pages to your site before your products are approved for selling via their marketplace …

(Policy requirements for selling products through ClickBank)

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

(FTC – consumer policies 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 reveals that many sites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this typically results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any kind of selling 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 site is compliant with FTC guidelines and regulations.

Various sites provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to useful resources to a number of these at the end of this article …

(You must structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These

If you are planning to create apps for your site, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others will require you to provide information about your legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote products or services online via affiliate marketing, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or using 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 include on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
• If you have ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.

(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 Site To Ensure Compliance

If you suspect that your website or blog falls short in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website should help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):

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

As well as the above pages, you may want to look into including any of these pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides financial content)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Use Of Media (if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

It’s important to add the correct types of disclosure pages to your website. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs visitors that you will not receive any type of compensation for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets site users know that you will receive compensation if they buy through one of your affiliate links.
• Sample Or review Copy – Lets visitors know that you have received a review or sample copy of the product you’re reviewing or writing about.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets site users know that you were compensated in some form to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs your visitors 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 Pages Content To Your Site

Ideally, you will consult lawyers 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.

Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Site

If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your web 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 directory (e.g. using FTP) …

(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)

You can then easily add links to these legal pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu feature …

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Site

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

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

To learn more about adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• How To Use Widgets In WordPress

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

Go here to learn more:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can purchase a set of cut & paste legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website templates were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates FTC regulations and guidelines brought into effect in March 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• 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 for every legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your server as described previously.

More information:

• Website Legal Pages

Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins

In addition to using templates, you can keep things really simple by using a plugin.

Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress websites and blogs you may be interested in using:

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin)

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

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

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

• Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any other page on your site.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to your 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 checkbox and delete and manage these like any WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When the user agrees to the legal terms, the page unlocks.
• Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will display inside your main dashboard area …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate/review websites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages – Page Type)

Choose from a number of pre-written legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – 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 for more details about this powerful plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users that contains over twenty customizable legal templates for your online presence …

Go here to learn more:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

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

For more information, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro

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

We want your business to be legally safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (it’s FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal documentation, or a plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to quickly generate 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 are making money online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your site complies with all regulations and any terms of service and guidelines of third-party sites that you may decide to promote or offer online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect 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 offer legal advice. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.

Additional Resources

Here is a time-saving list of websites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your site may require to stay compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• FTC 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
• 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
• United States Copyright Office

And …

• 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 WordPress website.

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