There are 3 pages on your website that I’ve seen far too many local business owners missing. Not having these in place could leave them open to a potential legal claim in the future from a disgruntled customer.

The 3 pages that I’m referring to are:

1. Privacy Policy
2. Terms of Use
3. Disclaimer

If you go to any corporate website, you’ll see these 3 pages commonly placed in the footer section.

Most users don’t bother to read these pages but in the event of a dispute or claim, the courts will want to see that your business has them in place.

Google does pay attention to these pages and whilst we haven’t found any direct correlation in improved rankings by having these pages on a website, we do know that these pages get crawled and indexed incredibly fast.

In fact, my peers and I have even gone so far as putting up a new WordPress installation onto a new registered domain and seen that these 3 pages get indexed BEFORE any of the inner pages on our websites.

These 3 pages are commonly referred to as ‘Legal Pages’ and if you’re not sure where to start or what information to put in each of these pages then read on.

 

Privacy Policy

This is a statement that discloses how your business uses and manages a customer’s personal data. You need to explain if your website uses cookies (small bits of data that identify a user’s computer e.g. based on their i.p. address) and if you use ads on your website (e.g. Google AdSense) that may collect data from your users, even if you don’t.

If you’re running an ecommerce website then it’s even more important that you have a Privacy Policy in place.

 

Terms Of Use

This page provides the rules by which a user agrees to abide by when they use your service or read the information on your blog. If you’re only providing information then you can call this page ‘Terms Of Use’ but if you provide a service from your website then it’s more appropriate to name this page ‘Terms Of Service’.

You should consult a lawyer to help you personalise your Terms Of Service page. The services that you provide are going to be different to another user’s services so make sure that you cover your back by getting professional legal advice and getting a customised Terms Of Service page.

 

Disclaimer

This page is where you state that the information that you provide is not of a legal nature (unless you are an attorney, in which case you’ll create your own customised page!) and that you will not be held liable for any damages relating to the advice that you provide.

This is to cover you in case a visitor decides to follow the advice that you provide and it go wrong, resulting in them experiencing harm.

If you provide ads on your website then you can also use this page to state that the ads you show should not be considered as an endorsement. This is particularly important if your site, for examples, provides reviews of a product.

 

What If I Don’t Have These Legal Pages?

If you’ve got WordPress installed on your website then I’ve got you covered.

Go to the WordPress plugins repository and look for a plugin called WP Legal Pages (Paid) or Guerrilla’s Legal Pages (Free). There is a free version of WP Legal Pages but it’s not very good so if you’re budget is tight then stick to Guerrilla’s Legal Pages.

 

What If My Website Isn’t Built On WordPress?

I got you covered!

Go here to set up your own privacy policy:

https://www.freeprivacypolicy.com/

Note: I’m not affiliated to either of the WordPress plugin and neither do I endorse the freeprivacypolicy.com website. It’s just a resource that I’ve found and heard is a good alternative for non WordPress users.

 
So there we have it – go ahead and create those additional pages and you’ll hopefully never have to worry about them ever again.