Quick Disclosure Time: I only recommend products I would use myself. All opinions expressed here are my own. So yeah… this post may contain affiliate links that are at no additional cost to you but I may earn a small commission. Depending on the link, you may even get a cool discount. Win-win folks. 🙂
Getting a website created and online for your brand has become easier over the years. Whether you create yours on your own or hire a pro to take over the task for you, it’s not too hard to launch your business’s online home base… right? Well, besides your core pages; Home, Services/Products, About, and Contact, were your website’s legal pages part of your launch strategy?
Website legality… the unsexy stuff. There are a lot of website owners (especially DIYers) who forget or simply skip this content creation for their websites. And some of you reading this may be thinking…
- No one reads that stuff anyway… Why should I even spend the time to get this legal jargon created for my site?
- How do I go about getting this content anyway? Seems complicated…
- Folks will still buy/work with me with or without having legal pages on my site… What’s the point in having them?
Besides the fact that some of this legal content is required by law, legal pages help in building trust with your audience. Sure, they may not sit down to read this lengthy content but it’s always nice to see that it exists on your website.
It’ll make your visitors feel more safe and welcome on your website which leads to more clicks.
Let’s get your site legit with the following legal page must-haves.
Privacy Policy
Transparency is the name of the game when it comes to your website’s legal pages and the Privacy Policy is what kicks off trust-building for your business.
This content explains to your visitors what personal info you collect from them and how it will be used. Plus, it also lets your visitors know how safe it is to share their personal information with you via your website for correspondence or transaction purposes.
Whether you’re running an online store, collecting email addresses from forms and pop-ups, or even receiving contact information from form inquiries, you must have a Privacy Policy to build serious trust with your users. This page is required by federal law so you’ll want to make sure you have one on your site.
Cookie Policy
Your site’s Cookie Policy lays out the different cookies that your website will put on their browsing devices. By the way, Cookies are just small pieces of data that live on a web server. When a user visits a website, Cookies are automatically placed on their device while they surf the site.
Cookies are related to your Privacy Policy but having separate policies for each one will keep your site’s content and page structure easier to navigate and understand. This is another policy that’s required by law in some countries.
Terms and Conditions
Rules, rules, rules. That’s what your site’s Terms and Conditions page is all about. This page lays out everything that you need your visitors to know about the expectations from you and your website. What they can and can not expect from you… plus what you expect from them.
This page protects you like a well-made shield. Terms and Conditions explain the rules that your visitors must agree to before they can use your site. It’s a contract between you and your users that explains the rights and responsibilities between both parties.
This isn’t a required by law page but it’s definitely a must-have in my eyes. Terms and Conditions safeguard your brand’s published content, your business, your rights, your obligations, and even the content that your users share on your site. Don’t skip this one.
Disclaimer
Typically found on blogs, sites that accept a ton of user-submitted content, and websites that display a lot of external links, the Disclaimer is another page that helps protect your business. It basically lets your visitor know that you can not be held responsible for what your users end up doing with the info that you share on your website.
Quick example: You post a blog on your website all about how you were able to go full-time in your business in less than 3 months. A user on your site reads this blog, gets super inspired, quits their job, and tries to replicate the results that you achieved but with no success. If you have a thorough Disclaimer on your website, that person can’t circle back and sue you because they weren’t able to do the same.
A disclaimer does a little more than protect you from being sued. It also shows that you’re all about transparency which in turn builds trust for your brand.
Just like the Cookie Policy being related to the Privacy Policy, a Disclaimer can pull information from the Terms and Conditions of your website. Again, it’ll help visitors understand your site’s legality more easily if these pages are completely separate from each other.
For Online Store Owners
In conjunction with having a Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, Terms and Conditions, and a Disclaimer, individuals who run an online store must go further in protecting their business’s reputation and website.
Shipping Policy
Displaying a Shipping Policy on your online store from day one will help you avoid the many questions that buyers may have when it comes to when they’ll receive their package.
A great shipping policy lays out what a buyer should expect from your store when it comes down to shipping times, zones, and costs. The document should be updated as you make changes to how you ship out your products.
Furthermore, if you’re able to display shipping speeds at checkout on your online store, definitely take advantage of this feature. This little addition can help improve your store’s conversion rate, shows off your brand’s transparency, and builds customer loyalty + confidence.
Refunds and Returns Policy
Another one that may be included in your site’s Terms and Conditions is your Refunds and Returns Policy should also be on its own page to make this important information easier to locate.
When you’re an online store owner, you should expect refunds and returns to happen. Not everyone will be fully satisfied with your products so letting visitors know how you handle refunds and returns is essential to… again… build buyer trust.
This policy is simply a fully transparent document that explains to your users how you manage and go about refunds and returns. This lets them know exactly what to expect from you if they decide that they’d like their money back from a purchase made on your site.
3 Easy Methods to Get this Content for Your Site
So, how would you go about getting this content for your website? Most people don’t want to (and shouldn’t) manually create legal content on their own. The three best ways to do this are by:
- having a legal advisor draft up the content for you
- using an easy to follow online generator to quickly create it
- purchasing ready-made legal page templates to quickly tweak
Using a generator or purchasing templates are the more cost-effective ways to get fully compliant legal page content. My recommendations? If you decide to go with a generator, Terms Feed or termly.io are great options to go with. For the template route, The Contract Shop is a great place to purchase single or bundled legal templates that can be easily adjusted using their instructions!
Let’s Conclude
Legal pages may not be fun to add to your website but they’re way too important to ignore. Not only do they allow you to build trust with your audience, you also get to protect your business just by displaying this content on your site. The best way to make these pages visible on your site is to display links to them in the footer section which should live on each of your site’s pages.
