Legal pages for websites refer to the terms and conditions privacy policy and disclaimer.
These legal pages are essential to different degrees depending on the type of website, however they also indicate to search engines, like Google that your site is serious and complete.
As your website grows and starts getting more traffic, it’s important that you are in line with the European GDPR (General Data Protection Rules) and California Privacy laws.
So, when your site ever grows to larger levels, I recommend you seek legal advice relevant to your country and the location of your visitors.
For a starter site, the basic legal pages we will set up in this guide, should cover you from a legal perspective.
In this tutorial I will be covering the following legal pages:
Privacy Policy for Blogs and Websites
The Privacy Policy helps your website build trust with visitors because it explains what personal information is being collected on your website’s users and visitors.
It also clarifies what the site owner is using this data for. How the site is tracking user visits and what information they are keeping on record.
Do I need a privacy policy on my website?
If establishing trust with your visitors and search engines is not enough of a reason for inserting a Privacy Policy page on your WordPress site, then you should know that the website’s privacy policy is also required by law, so make sure you have it in your site.
WordPress privacy policy generator
You should already have a Privacy Policy Page in place since WordPress creates this automatically when you start your site.
Feel free to keep this WordPress Privacy Policy template, or else follow the steps below to generate a more detailed Privacy Policy Document.
To generate the wording for our Privacy Policy we will use a free website called Privacypolicyonline.com.
Click on the Free Generators option at the top of their website (in the menu section) and choose Privacy Policy Generator.
Now fill in the details in the generator box, basically your Website Name and your website URL. Click Next.
In the next section you will be asked 5 questions:
Do you use cookies?
Click YES to this because eventually there’s a good chance that you will be using cookies on your website, so better be covered.
Do you show ads from Google AdSense?
Again, this depends on what kind of website you’re building. I will choose NO for this because I don’t intend to use Google AdSense on this site.
Do you show Ads from third Parties?
I’m guessing that you will have to say YES for this because unless the site is purely a hobby site or ecommerce site, chances are that you will be promoting something though your site at some point.
Country/State:
Enter your country (and State if you’re in the US).
In the next section, the Privacy Policy Generator will ask for your email address. Input this and click on CREATE PRIVACY POLICY.
In the next page you will get a Privacy Policy Document filled in with the details of your website and the options you inputted in the generator.
All you need to do now is copy this text (from the box on the right) and paste it in the Privacy Policy Page on your WordPress site.
Where to put privacy policy on website
Head to your Privacy Policy Page on WordPress Dashboard (Pages > All Pages > Privacy Policy) and remove the default Privacy Policy content that WP created (except for the title).
You should now have a blank page (except for the title).
Right click on the first block and paste the content you copied from the Privacy Policy generator.
The content created by the Privacy Policy Generator should now be on your WordPress site.
Before you close off, make sure that you have included the ‘Nometa’ tag on the right-hand side of the page under Tags. This way the Header element and Author Box we created do not show up on this page.
Update/Publish the page and you’re all done.
The Privacy Policy page will be shown separately in your website. It will be linked to from your homepage footer menu so that visitors can easily find it should they need to refer to it.
In all honesty very few people ever look at the Privacy Policy page of a website, however as previously explained this is required by law and therefore I recommend you always have it in all your websites.
Website Disclaimer
The other essential legal page you need for your website, in my opinion, is the Disclaimer Page.
Disclaimer Meaning
Let me start by explaining what is a disclaimer, because with all this technical legal jargon flying around, it is easy to get confused.
While the Privacy Policy statement we included in the previous section is meant to protect your visitors’ rights, the legal Disclaimer page is meant to protect your rights. Or more specifically your website’s rights.
Do I need a Disclaimer on my Website?
Unlike the Privacy Policy, a website disclaimer is not required by law, however since it is meant to protect your site, I highly recommend you take 5 minutes to include it.
The Legal disclaimer is meant to protect you from any liability or legal action taken against you from a visitor of your website. The details within a disclaimer notice will therefore depend on the type of product or service being offered from your site.
A standard disclaimer notice will be enough for your website if you are not giving any professional advice.
On the other hand, if you are building a website that will be producing content usually of a professional nature, like legal advice, health advice and so on, then I recommend you pay for a professional disclaimer.
Generating Your Disclaimer
To prepare your standard disclaimer notice page we will follow the same process used for the Privacy Policy page, but this time using the disclaimer generator wording.
Go back to privacypolicyonline.com home page.
Click on FREE GENERATORS, and this time choose DISCLAIMER GENERATOR. Fill in the same details as before and once the disclaimer generator produces your Disclaimer content, just copy it.
Where to put Disclaimer on Website
This time we will have to create a Disclaimer Page on WordPress because this is not created by default, like we saw for the Privacy Policy Page.
To create a page, go to your WordPress dashboard and click on Pages > Add New.
Title the page as Disclaimer and paste the text you got from the Disclaimer Generator.
You will notice that in the text generated by privacypolicyonline.com for your Disclaimer, the first paragraph displays your email address for people to contact you on.
I suggest you remove the last part of the sentence and instead highlight the words ‘contact us’ and insert a link to the Contact Us page on your website.
Make sure the ‘nometa’ tag is selected under tags on the page, and click on UPDATE and PUBLISH.
Website Terms and Conditions
As far as website legal pages go, the Privacy Policy and Disclaimer pages are really the most essential ones you need, however many sites also include the T&C.
The terms and conditions page in a website usually covers the general rules and terms of the transactions between the website owner and the website clients.
So, the terms and conditions of an e-commerce site that sells goods or services, would cover the legal conditions between the seller and the purchaser, once a transaction is completed.
This T&C page would explain the payment options, return policy, shipping terms, and any other details that may occur from the sale transaction. In other words, they show the fine print of the Sale transaction.
Do I need a terms and conditions on my website?
As you can see form the above, the need for a Terms and Conditions page on your website depends on what type of website you have and the transactions you intend to enter into from your website.
For an information content site, like those of bloggers, news agencies, and most of the websites out there, the need for a Terms and Conditions page is not really necessary.
I do not include a T&C page on my WordPress sites because they are usually all info sites and my legal requirements are covered through my Disclaimer Page.
Having said this, it is completely up to you if you would like to include a Terms and Conditions page for your website.
Having a T&C page is not a legal requirement.
Terms and Conditions Template
To get your free website Terms and Conditions template you can once again head to the legal pages generator previously used.
This time you will want to click on the terms and conditions generator and follow the exact same steps.
Once again you will need to create a new Page on your WordPress site for the Terms and Conditions and paste the content created by the generator.
Remember to click on the PUBLISH PAGE once done.
Website legal pages done. What Next?
Make sure you’re happy with all the legal pages you need for your website. As explained above I recommend you have a minimum of two pages, being the Privacy Policy Page (this is also required by law), and the Legal Disclaimer page.
Next up let’s give our visitors a means to get in contact with us should they need to.
In the next tutorial I will show you how to create your hub pages from where all your content will branch out.
As always feel free to refer to any of my other WordPress Tutorials.
