4 Legal Pages You Need For Your Blog Or Website
Are you looking for legal pages for your blog or website?
Or are you wondering how to blog legally in general?
Starting a blog is fun but the legal side of blogging can be a bit boring. Who wants to learn all about privacy policies, GDPR or other blogging rules and regulations…
Yeah me neither…
But it’s super important to know how to legally protect your blog so you can avoid legal issues, fines and lawsuits.
In this post I’ll explain what legal pages you need for your blog (plus where to get them in an affordable legal bundle), and 6 other steps you need to take to make sure your blog is legal.
Let’s dive in!
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I may earn a small commission for affiliate links in this post at no extra cost to you. Please read my disclaimer for more information.
Please keep in mind that this blog post should not be taken as legal advice but rather as legal information. For more detailed info please contact your lawyer or take this free legal course.
Do you really need legal pages for your blog?
Have you been busy setting up your blog but haven’t taken any steps to make sure your blog is legal?
As a new blogger you are responsible for making sure you are blogging legally, and the first step is adding legal pages to your blog.
Often new bloggers ask me: “Do I need a privacy policy for my blog?”
The answer is YES! You do need a privacy policy page for your blog!
It doesn’t matter if your blog is just a hobby that won’t make any money or if you’re setting up an online business, either way you need to make sure you are following blogging rules and regulations, and adding a privacy policy is one of them.
Why you need legal pages for your blog
It’s required by law:
Did you know it’s actually required by law to have legal pages on your blog?
Because all blogs and websites collect data from their site visitors, you, as a website owner, have to be fully transparent about how you process this data.
Your blog collects data from your site visitors through at least one of these ways:
- Email signup forms
- Contact forms
- Cookies
- Google Analytics
- Payment systems
A Privacy Policy page will let your visitors know how you collect information and what you do with it.
To work with brands and third party services:
You also need legal pages to work with brands or to get approved for ad networks, Google Analytics or to signup for affiliate programs. Most affiliate programs and ad networks won’t approve your application if you don’t have a privacy policy and disclaimer in place.
So if you want to make money with your blog, be sure to add legal pages first!
To increase credibility:
Legal pages also increase your credibility as a brand. Your website will look more trustworthy with links to legal pages in your footer.
People are used to seeing legal pages on websites, they expect them there. If your site doesn’t have legal pages you might lose credibility and trust.
4 Legal Pages Your Blog Needs
Legal pages you need for your blog are: Privacy Policy, Disclaimer and a Terms & Conditions.
If you monetise your blog through affiliate marketing, you’ll also need an Affiliate Disclosure. You can add this as a separate page or add an affiliate disclosure section to your Disclaimer Page.
Below you’ll find links to buy these pages separately, but if you want to save money, I highly recommend buying them in a bundle.
A great legal bundle for your blog is the Legal Bundle Value Pack.
This legal bundle was created by fellow blogger and lawyer Lucrezia Iapichino and it includes all legal page templates your blog needs.
- Privacy Policy
- Disclaimer
- Terms & Conditions
- Affiliate Disclosure
The Legal Bundle Value Pack is the most affordable legal bundle for bloggers I could find. This legal bundle includes a course on how to add these legal pages to your WordPress blog.
CHECK OUT THE LEGAL BUNDLE VALUE PACK HERE
Legal Pages for Blogs & Websites
Let’s have a look at each individual legal page, what its purpose is and what it should include.
1. Privacy Policy
Your PrivacyPolicy is a legal document that informs your website visitors about any personal data you collect on your blog and how you use this data.
Your Privacy Policy should include:
- Types of data collected
(like names, email addresses, location data, IP addresses etc.) - Methods of data collection
(contact forms, email list sign up, Google Analytics, Cookies etc.) - Why you collect data
(for email marketing purposes, e-Commerce to understand your audience better etc.) - Who you share the data with and why
(if you use a third-party payment gateway on your site, you’ll be sharing your clients’ personal information to be able to process the payment.)
You need a Privacy Policy when working with affiliate programs, Google Analytics and plenty of other third party services, so adding this to your blog is a must.
You can find a Privacy Policy template here
(This Privacy Policy is suitable for a WordPress blog or any other type of blog.)
2. Disclaimer
Your disclaimer lets your site visitors know that you don’t take legal responsibility for anything you publish on your blog. You need a disclaimer to protect yourself from lawsuits.
For example: You write a post about how you invested in Bitcoin and tripled your money in 2 weeks. If your reader follows your advice and invests all their money in Bitcoin, and then loses all their money, they can’t hold you liable if you have a disclaimer on your blog.
A bit of an extreme example, but you get the idea…
Your disclaimer lets your readers know that you share information rather than professional advice and if they follow your advice, you can’t be held liable for the outcome.
Your Disclaimer should include:
- Your blog content is not to be taken as professional advice
- You accept no liability for your blog content or third party links
- There are no guarantees for success if someone follows your advice
- An affiliate disclosure (if you use affiliate links on your blog and don’t have a separate Affiliate Disclosure page)
Click here for an affordable Disclaimer template
3. Terms & Conditions
Your Terms & Conditions or Terms of Use are basically the rules of your website.
A Terms & Conditions page’s main purpose is to protect your rights and your intellectual property.
Your Terms & Conditions should include:
- Your intellectual property rights
- An explanation of your site visitors rights & obligations
- Your right to make changes to your site or to terminate anyone’s use of your site
- A limitation of liability
You can get a Terms & Conditions template here.
4. Affiliate Disclosure
If you are monetising your blog through affiliate marketing, you need to add an affiliate disclosure to every blog post. A short version of your affiliate disclosure should appear at the top of your page before you mention any affiliate links. It should also include a link to your full affiliate disclosure on your disclaimer or disclosure page.
You can get an affiliate disclosure here.
This disclosure comes with a bonus checklist of Amazon associates DON’T’s, so if you’re an Amazon affiliate this should help you to stay compliant with their affiliate rules.
You can get the affiliate disclosure for only $17 or if you buy the Legal Bundle Value Pack it is included in this bundle.
These are all the legal pages you need on your blog
If you want to save money on your legal pages and have peace of mind that you have all the right pages for your blog, make sure to get the Legal Bundle Value Pack here. This legal bundle also includes a course with instructions on how to implement these pages on your website.
If you feel a bit overwhelmed by the legal side of blogging, I highly recommend taking this Free Legal Course by lawyer and blogger Lucrezia Iapicino. She explains everything you need to know in more detail.
Other things you need to know about blogging legally
As I said before, there are 7 steps to blogging legally, legal pages are step 1, here are 6 more things you need to be aware of to make your blog legal.
1. Create original content
This almost goes without saying, but obviously you need to create your own original content.
Never copy anyone else’s work and call it your own, this would be illegal.
As soon as someone has published a blog post, it is protected by copyright law.
Legal ways to use other people’s content are:
- Linking to someone else’s content.
- Quoting someone and including their name.
- Accepting a guest blogger on your blog
- Using several articles for research but writing it from a new angle and in your own voice.
2. Use fonts that are licensed for commercial use
Be careful when downloading free fonts from the internet. Some of these fonts are only free for personal use and are not to be used commercially.
Thankfully most good WordPress themes come with an extensive font library that you can use on your website. For your Pinterest pins you can use the free fonts in Canva and if you upgrade to Canva Pro you get choice of over 1000 fonts for only $9.95 per month.
3. Only use photos that can be used commercially
Do you know how to use pictures on your blog legally?
If you’re not a good photographer, or you don’t want to take your own photos for your blog, you can’t just download pictures from the internet.
Most of the photos, graphics, drawings or other images you’ll find in a Google search are images from other websites, and these are protected by copyright law.
The only images you can use on your blog are royalty free images.
You can get these by:
- Taking your own photos.
- Getting someone from Fiverr to design/draw a graphic for you
- Using free stock photos
- Joining a stock photo membership site
4. Add affiliate disclosures
Besides adding an affiliate disclosure page on your website, you have to add a short affiliate disclosure at the top of every blog post that includes affiliate links. Certain affiliate programs (Amazon for instance) will require you to mention them specifically in this disclosure.
Always make sure to read the Terms & Conditions of each affiliate program you join and make sure you are using the right wording in your disclosure.
You can get the affiliate disclosure for only $17 or it’s included in the Legal Bundle Value Pack.
5. Does your blog need to be GDPR compliant?
GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation and is a new regulation put in place to protect online privacy and personal data of EU users.
Does the GDPR only apply to bloggers in the EU?
No, the GDPR applies to all bloggers who:
- are based in the EU
- offer products or services to people in the EU
- tracks or monitors behaviours of people in the EU
Find out if your blog needs to be GDPR compliant with this free legal course.
If you are located in the EU or you know your blog needs to be GDPR compliant, I recommend taking this GDPR Compliant Blog Course, that shows you exactly all the steps you need to take.
Does your blog need to be CCPA compliant?
CCPA stands for California Consumer Privacy Act, and is basically the American version of the GDPR.
The CCPA does not only apply to bloggers from California. You can live anywhere in the world but still get blog visitors from California. You can check your Google Analytics to see if you get visitors from California.
However, your blog traffic changes every day and when your blog traffic grows, so are the chances that you get traffic from California and you’ll need to be CCPA compliant. So my advice is to be safe rather than sorry.
Enrol in this CCPA for Bloggers Masterclass and find out all the steps to making your blog compliant.
Blogging Legally – Do’s & Don’ts
Let’s recap with a quick checklist to help you avoid blogging legal issues:
✔Use a Legal pages that have been created by a lawyer, don’t use free legal pages from a generator. These pages are very generic and might miss important details.
✔ Find out if your blog needs to be GDPR or CCPA compliant and take the necessary steps to make it compliant. Take this free legal course for more information.
✔ Create your own fresh content and don’t plagiarise another blogger’s work.
✔ Take your own photos or use stock photos, don’t use photos from the internet.
✔ Use fonts that are licensed for commercial use, don’t use freemium fonts for commercial work.
Legally protecting your blog – conclusion
As you can see, legal pages are important for your blog or website but there are definitely also other things to be aware of if you want to avoid legal issues.
Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below.
If you want more details on the GDPR or CCPA make sure to check out this free legal course and if you want to save money on your legal pages, click the button below to buy them in one affordable bundle!
Thanks for sharing
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