Is your website protected? 3 legal pages every business needs | Website Prep 7: Website Legal
You wouldn't build a house without a roof to protect everything, right? Then don't build your website without these three essential legal pages to protect it.
We're continuing our series about getting your small business ready to launch or refresh your website. HERE’s a link to the playlist. Today, we're talking about a topic that many small businesses, unfortunately, just think they can skip or don't think about at all, but it's actually super important. And that is legal pages for your website.
Every day, businesses risk being sued because they don't have the right legal documents in place on their website to protect themselves. Let's make sure that's not you!
Your business could get in trouble in a number of ways, if you don't take time to legally protect your website.
· You could get sued or fined by the FTC for privacy regulations.
· You could get sued by a client
· Any other number of ways to end up in a costly and time-consuming legal battle.
Ultimately, any of these could cost you your business.
Thankfully, I have never personally known anyone that has run into these legal battles. However, there are plenty of heartbreaking stories out there and the FTC privacy violation list is online for anyone to see. You really do NOT want this to happen to you!
ESSENTIAL LEGAL PAGES
At a minimum, you need these three legal pages on your website: your Privacy Policy, your Disclaimer, and your Terms and Conditions.
As a disclaimer for this blog post, I need to state that I am not a lawyer and this should not be construed as legal advice. These are just my recommendations for you, as a friend. I want you to protect your business and your website. This is also not a sponsored post, but I am an affiliate of Amira at aselfguru.com and I highly recommend her legal templates, which I'm going to talk about in a bit...
Your Privacy Policy needs to contain a few different things, but as a general overview, it talks about what personal information you're collecting on your site and how you're going to use it. Your privacy policy also needs to cover the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) if you have any European Union site visitors or email subscribers, as well as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the CAN-SPAM act as well as many other laws. There's so much that needs to go into this!
Your Disclaimer legally protects the content on your site and it needs to be specific to you and your business. This could also include disclosures like affiliate relationships.
Your Terms and Conditions are basically the rules and regulations of your site. They can include things like how you're going to resolve disputes, protections for keeping your content from being stolen, refund and exchange policies, etc.
FREE LEGAL TEMPLATES??
One question you may ask is "Can't I just use free legal templates that I find online?" but basically you get what you pay for… Here are some reasons that I recommend against this option.
These generic free templates that you may find online are often missing key sections that you will need to legally protect your site and your business, and you'll often have to pay to get these upgrades for the pieces that you really need - so they end up not really being free.
They're not really customized for you and your business. You also have to ask, are they actually created by a lawyer? Many times, they're not.
They can also be confusing and complicated to use if you're trying to actually customize them to get the legal protection that you need for your business and your website. It's just not worth exposing your business to that risk and liability.
LEGAL TEMPLATE RECOMMENDATIONS
As I said in the beginning, I use and recommend the legal templates from Amira over at aselfguru.com. NOTE: this is an affiliate link, and really all that means is that if you choose to make a purchase through this link, I receive a small commission to help my small business, but it is at absolutely no additional cost to you.
So, who is Amira? She is a full-time lawyer and she's also a seven-figure blogger and coach. This is what she does full-time. Here's why I recommend her templates and bundles.
First of all, they are drafted by a lawyer. She's a lawyer first and a blogger, second. They are comprehensive, professional templates that are actually really easy to use and customize for your business.
They are super affordable. She has all kinds of combinations. You can get single templates or bundles that let you save even more. Lifetime updates are also included, so as the laws change and get updated, your templates can get updated as well. You’ll always have the most current protections available for your business and your website.
Amira also has an online support community where you can ask additional questions of her and the community, which is extremely helpful!
Be sure to come back next week when we are going to talk about whether you should DIY your website or hire a pro. If you want to get a jumpstart on prepping for your website launch, be sure to grab my free website prep checklist HERE.
Let me know in the comments, are you going to legally protect your website?