So you have purchased your own domain, installed WordPress, the best plugins to help you customize your site and have chosen a really pretty theme that’s ready to captivate your visitors. If you’re wondering what your next steps would be, it’s to make sure that you will be blogging legally by having these legal pages on your brand new blog.
I know it sounds intimidating but it’s not really that complicated.
This post is here to tell you about what you must have on your blog to be legal and protect you.
Let’s start with this example.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer or legal practioner and this post can’t be considered as a legal advice. I can only talk about my experience in building two websites as a guide or reference for those who also want to start blogging. You can always seek legal counsel to make sure that your blog will be compliant and legally protected. This post may also contain affiliate links. This means that we may earn small commission on item sold through these links. There is NO additional cost to you from the sale but this will help us maintain the website. Please refer to our Privacy Policy for full information.
This one above is an example of one of the four legal pages that your blog must have.
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Privacy Policy
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Disclosure
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Disclaimer
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Terms and conditions
These are the four legal pages that you have to make sure that your blog have if you are serious about making money from your blog.
If you don’t have them yet, this post will help you to have an idea of what your next basic and important steps should be to make your blog complinat and also to increase your site’s credibility.
1. Privacy Policy
Privacy policy summarizes how personal data being collected is used, stored and disclosed.
Having privacy policy on your site aims to inform your site’s visitors what kind of personal information you collect from them and how these information will be used. This also covers children privacy, personal data, email marketing, third party anf other requirements such as California’s CCPA and Europe’s GDPR.
The key is transparency. If your site uses cookies to enhance user experience, this policy is a must on your site plus your contact information where your visitors who’d want to be removed from the database can reach you.
Read also:How Much Does it Cost to Have a Self-Hosted Blog?
2. Disclosure
This is where you tell your visitors the information about products and/or services mentioned on your site or posts for them to make well-informed decisions.
This includes any ambassadorship, affiliate relationships, sponsorship, finanacial compensation or commissions that you will receive for having that product or service included or mentioned on your site.
You should also dedicate a page that contains a more detailed version of your disclosure statement.
3. Disclaimer
Having a disclaimer on your blog aims to protect you from lawsuits or being sued due to the results of the use of your website.
Your disclaimer must match with the content and purpose of your site. Let’s say I’m a vegan blogger who shares my vegan journey and how it improves my health condition and well-being. I’ll mention on my disclaimer that what I’m sharing can’t be taken as a medical or health advice and it is still better to consult their own doctors.
If a reader complains about the negative effects or some bad allergic reaction as a result of my post, I can deny liability for what I have written about.
4. Term and Conditions or Terms of Use
This summarizes the terms that your site’s visitors must agree on or adhere to if they want to visit your site and to tell them what is allowed and what is not.
This is like the contract between you and your visitors.
This includes copyright, intellectual property, refund/exchange policies if you are selling goods and the termination rights if you offer subscription.
For both my sites, Terms and Conditions and Disclaimer are explained in detail in my Privacy Policy page.
Having these pages can protect you from legal liabilities.
On your WordPress dashboard, there’s actually a section where you can create one but if you are still not sure about what to do to get started, there are actually a lot of template bundles available online where you can choose from.
I personally use Entrepreneur Legal Corner’s templates. They have all the legal templates a blogger needs. If you have a lawyer, you can also consult them about your legal pages that will suit your blog’s unique needs.
And once you’re done with your legal pages, put the links in the footer of your website.
I hope this post helps.
Your virtual bestie,
Dani
Read also:
Self-Love Lessons I Learned from Blogging
Why I Host my Blogs with Siteground
