Top 25 Legal Pages For Your WordPress Website

Publishing legal documents is essential for any website. While it is a legal requirement in many countries, it helps you to maintain good terms with your customers also.  And a pre-designed legal template helps you to create your own document based on your needs and publish it on your own.  WP legal pages is a WordPress plugin that offers you more than 25 legal templates which you can use to publish legal documents on your site. In this article, we will give you a detailed guide on how to use the plugin along with the list of templates it comes with.

Importance of legal documents for websites. 

Following are the reasons why you must have legal documents online –    

• Having a privacy policy and certain disclaimers are a legal requirement. What kind of documents you should put on your site depends on the type of business you have. 
• It is important to gain the trust of your users. If everything is well defined, people come back to you again and it develops a long-lasting relationship. 
• It protects your site contents from infringement if you have a copyright. 
• The terms and condition pages protect the online communities that you create on your websites as it sets guidelines for members. 
• Many third-party services that you deal with from time to time. For Example; Google Analytics, Twitter, and Facebook Apps require you to publish some legal documents like a privacy policy. 

25 Types of Legal Pages for your Website

The legal pages that you should have on your website depend upon the type of business you run and the country you’re living in. While some legal pages are standard for most websites, others might require some different or additional legal pages. For example, it’s important for eCommerce websites to have a return and refund policy page. It might not be required for other business websites. So, it’s essential to understand the different types of legal pages available and the kind of business website you own.

1. GDPR Privacy Policy: Use when your website collects personal information and has visitors from the EU.
2. GDPR Cookie Policy: Use when you have visitors from the EU & are using cookies on your website.
3. Terms of Service: Define SLAs, and terms of service for your site.
4. Terms & Conditions: Limit liabilities, force agreement, and define the Terms & Conditions.
5. CCPA (California Consumers Privacy Act): If you are collecting personal data and have California-based users.
6. Amazon Affiliate Disclosure: To comply with Amazon’s affiliate program requirements (if you promote products listed on Amazon)
7. Linking Policy: Use this policy to inform the users about the terms and conditions for linking to your website and disclaimers for external linking.
8. Blog Comments Policy: Use when you have comments enabled on your blog.
9. Affiliate Agreement: For a legal contract between you and your affiliates who promote your products/services.
10. Affiliate Marketing Disclosures: Include this when you use affiliate links or promote a product for which you’ve been compensated.
11. External Links Policy: Use this policy to inform the users about the terms and conditions for linking to your website and disclaimers for external linking.
12. DoubleClick DART Cookie Policy: Use this policy if you’re an advertising publisher and use DART cookies.
13. Returns & Refunds: If you want to protect your eCommerce business.
14. Digital Goods Refunds: If you sell digital products on your website.
15. Anti Spam Policy (CASL Compliant): If you are an individual/business that uses email for advertising or promoting something.
16. Privacy Policy for Facebook Apps: Use this policy if you’re using Facebook functionality.
17. Earnings Disclaimer: To limit your legal liability if your website is promoting strategies and programs to help users make money.
18. Medical Disclaimers: To imply that the information on your website is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
19. General Disclaimers: To limit your legal liability and keep your users informed.
20. FTC Testimonials Disclosure: Use this if your website displays user reviews or endorsements.
21. California Privacy Rights Policy: If you have California-based users and want to give them clarity on the disclosure of personal information.
22. DMCA Policy: To limit your liability to copyright infringement claims.
23. Children’s Online Privacy Policy (COPPA): If you are collecting personal information on your website from children below 13 years of age.
24. Newsletter Subscription Policy: If you are using an email newsletter service and collect personal information like email id from your subscribers
25. FTC Disclosure Statement: If you have a website and have affiliate partners, you should declare your website’s compliance with the Federal Trade Commission policies

4 Must have Legal Pages for your Website

Legal pages strengthen your bond with your users. They make you transparent in the eyes of them which saves you from unwanted legal issues.  

What legal pages a website should have depends largely on the type of site. If it is an eCommerce site, the requirement will be completely different from that of a personal blog. The requirement also varies with the area of operation. Every country has its own cyber laws.  So, you need to check your purpose and who you deal with first. 

 Following are the major legal pages that every website needs to have for its protection.

1. Privacy Policy

A privacy policy is a legal agreement between two parties. It discloses the ways in which one party can access the other party’s data. It is a document that carries a set of terms and conditions that you will follow while using the personal data of your users.  In the context of a website, it discloses how the operators of the site will collect, store and utilize the personal data of its visitors. Nowadays, the privacy policy is mandatory for any website. What policy to be followed depends on the area of operation. For example, if a website deals with the people of California, it has to be compliant with CCPA. Similarly, if you deal with EU citizens, you have to follow GDPR.

2.Terms & Conditions

Terms and conditions, as the name suggests, are a set of rules that you will follow for different purposes. They dictate what is allowed on your website and what is not. You need to define everything clearly in detail. There should not be any scope of ambiguity.  Generally, the terms and conditions of a website contain rules about posting content, commenting, participating in a discussion or forum, etc. In the case of an eCommerce site, it acts as a legal contract between you and your users.

3. Refund Policy

A refund policy dictates the terms and conditions of any refunds that the seller offers to the buyers after they return any product.  It talks in detail about the terms and conditions of return and refund. Generally, a refund policy contains the following information – 

• How many days does a customer have to return a product
• How will he get  the refund whether credit or replacement
• Whether  you offer refunds for digital products or any in-app purchase
• Who will pay for the  shipping to return the product

4. Cookie Policy

A cookie policy is a declaration to the visitors of your website about the active cookies on your website. It generally talks about what user data the cookies track, for what purpose, and where the data is stored or sent. Many website owners choose to incorporate the cookie policy as a section of their privacy policy. If you are using cookies, it is required by the law to let people know about it. They have the option to allow or not to allow the cookies on their local devices. 

Apart from these, here are some other important web pages a website should have – 

• Copyrights 
• Disclaimers
• Corporate policies 
• Accessibility information 
• Affiliate agreement 
• Anti-spam policy 
• Complaints contact information  
• Compensation disclosure policy 

How to Add Legal Pages to your WordPress Website?

Not everyone is capable of creating legal pages for their websites. It’s pretty hard to create and add your legal pages. You might need the help of a lawyer. Hiring a lawyer might not work for you if you’re on a tight budget.

In such a case, we recommend using WP Legal Pages: Free privacy policy generator for WordPress. Using WP Legal Pages, you can generate free legal pages for your website. You get access to 25+ legal page templates with the pro version.

WP Legal Pages plugin allows you to create attorney-level privacy legal pages on your website. The plugin comes with many rich features to make your site compliant with the privacy policies of different countries without any hassle. You can create legal pages for your site on your own within a few minutes. All you need to do is to install the plugin and activate it. You can download it from the WPeka website or WordPress.org.  

After you have activated the plugin, follow the steps below to create a legal template – 

• Go to your WordPress dashboard
• Go to WPLegalPages – > Create Page

• Select the Type of website you have 
• On the right side of your screen, a number of templates will appear 
• Click on the template you need 

• The content of the template in your editor, you can edit it if you want 
• Now click on the publish button 

• Your legal template will be added to your website  

What Could be the Legal Issues for not Having Them?

A small legal trouble is enough to destroy your entire business. While the legal battle will affect your time, energy, and resources, the spread of the rumor will affect your reputation so badly that it will become difficult for you to survive. In order to avoid these troubles, you must publish the required legal documents on your site. 

The major legal issues a website often faces are – 

Theft or fraud 

Theft or fraud is a serious cuber issue today. The most common problem are Identity theft, internet time theft, and intellectual property. Identity theft is doing something under some other person’s name. Internet time theft is nothing but unauthorized use of the internet for a long time. Intellectual property theft is the use of someone else’s intellectual property. You have to be very serious about the security of your website to avoid it. That is why Mentioning the terms and conditions of use must be clear.

Trespass 

Trespass is a cybercrime in most countries in the World. It simply means unauthorized use of a website. If somebody accesses the personal data of your users it is unfortunate. Your privacy policy should make it clear to the visitors that their data is safe.   

Vandalism 

Vandalism of a website is if someone changes the content of your website without your approval. There are different reasons for the vandalism of websites. The most common is hacking. You have to ensure to your visitors that your website is protected from hackers. 

Harassment 

Harassment can be of many types. Some comments made by someone can cause harassment for some other person. If users are allowed to post on your site, some content too can cause harassment for somebody. Your terms and conditions should be clearly defined t get rid of this problem.

Copyright infringement     

Lastly, Copyright infringement refers to the use of copyright-protected material without permission. The right of use and production remains with the copyright holder. Individuals and organizations can register for copyright for their works for protection. Other parties can be given permission to use those works through licensing. Hence, you need to give clear notice of copyrights on the website.

Did you know? The Australian privacy act is much older than many other popular privacy laws of the world, including GDPR and CCPA. Learn more in our dedicated article on the Australian Privacy Policy Principles.

Conclusion 

We have tried our best to offer you a solution for the issues you are facing regarding the creation of legal pages on your website. Go through the step-by-step guide and you will be able to publish legal documents on your website using the pre-designed legal templates offered by WP legal pages in a few minutes.  

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