As a business lawyer, I’m often asked, “What website legal pages” you must post?
So I’ll give you the complete guide below and also share some other pages you may not have thought of.
Did you know that there are certain pages you must have on your website to do business legally?
Many websites also lack the proper legal pages, opening them up to serious legal liability and legal disputes.
And were you also aware that 98% of American websites fail to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) for people with disabilities?
This means that they aren’t accessible to the disabled community.
Today, almost every business has a website, meaning you can get in front of more people.
However, greater visibility comes with bigger legal issues, especially when your website visitors come from all over the world.
Whether you run an online store, a blog, or some other type of online business, you must have the right legal pages. Otherwise, you could face hefty fines or, worse yet, expensive lawsuits.
In this article, I’ll cover the must-have pages every website needs and some others I highly recommend to protect your business and income.
Plus, you’ll learn how to get the necessary legal agreements at an affordable price with my easy-to-use templates.
Note, while I am a lawyer, I’m not your lawyer, so this article doesn’t serve as legal advice; it’s just for educational purposes to help you protect your business.
Table of Contents
11 Must-Have Website Legal Pages You Need
It can be quite tempting to just ignore the legal requirements all websites must adhere to as new bloggers or business owners.
No matter what type of business you run, all business owners need these pages to avoid legal trouble.
I saw firsthand the stress lawsuits brought when my father was sued for $90,000 by a contractor because he didn’t use an independent contractor legal contract in his small business. I can assure you that it’s not pretty.
But don’t worry; protecting your business is easier than you think, and we’re going to show you how.
1. Privacy Policy
Privacy policies are some of the most important legal pages your website must have due to privacy laws around the world.
It is legally required for you to post a proper Privacy Policy on your website.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union was one of the first user privacy laws established that scared business owners and bloggers everywhere.
Since then, other countries and American states have started enacting their own privacy laws, such as:
- California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
- Virginia’s Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA)
- Connecticut Data Privacy Act (CTDPA)
- The Colorado Privacy Act (CPA)
- Brazil’s Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados (LGPD)
- Canada’s Digital Charter Implementation Act
Just to name a few!
If your website collects personal data like a visitor’s name and email address, you must comply with the data privacy laws of the countries and states from which they access your website.
Even if your website is not actively collecting leads (names or email addresses of others), you are still collecting tons of private data in Google Analytics.
So you would still need to post a privacy policy on your website.
Your policy should also address The COPPA Act or Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which protects the privacy of kids under the age of 13.
Wondering how you’re going to meet all the legal obligations for the states and countries people access your website from?
Grab our Privacy Policy Legal Template that complies with the most stringent privacy policy laws to ensure complete peace of mind.
OR if you like saving money, I recommend grabbing our VIP legal bundle here that gives you this template along with 15 more essential legal documents and templates for your website and business at a much bigger discount!
Watch how our customer Rachel started her online business legally with our VIP legal bundle.
2. Terms and Conditions
One of the other website legal pages you would need to post is called Terms and Conditions.
If you aren’t sure where to start when it comes to finding the important legal pages you need, there are three main legal documents to start with.
The terms and conditions, a privacy policy, and a disclaimer.
A terms and conditions agreement is essentially a set of website rules users must follow.
If you’re using it for an online course, eBook, or product, those rules govern the purchase of each one.
You can think of them as a legally binding contract between your website’s visitors and you.
This terms and conditions page is very important as it lays out what you allow and don’t allow on your website.
If you’re wondering where to get this website legal page, you can buy the terms and conditions template separately or in one of our affordable legal bundles.
Related Video: 3 Website Legal Pages You Must Have for Online Business
3. Disclaimer
Legal disclaimers are one of the three most important legal pages every website must have, and there are several disclaimers you can use.
A disclaimer page is critical in case someone relies on the information on your site and suffers a negative outcome.
If you make money through affiliate links, you must have an affiliate disclosure, as required by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
It’s a federal law, so you can’t skip it, as it discloses your affiliate relationships, commissions, sponsorships, and other incentives.
Other examples of disclaimers include:
- Medical disclaimers
- Testimonial disclaimers
- Copyright disclaimers
- Disclaimers about content written by third parties or third-party services
- AI disclaimers (when you use AI tools in business) and this is the AI disclaimer template you would need
You can grab my Starter Legal Bundle or Premium Legal Bundle or the VIP legal bundle that includes all three of these main legal pages above.
You can also purchase the Disclaimer Legal Template separately or in our VIP Legal Bundle.
4. Consent and Cookie Policy
You’ve probably seen the cookie bars that pop up when you land on a website page, asking if you accept all cookies or directing you to select your cookie settings.
A cookie policy tells your web visitors that you use cookies to track people on their devices.
In some countries, the use of cookies legally requires cookie policies.
You don’t need a separate page for your cookie policy but you do need to include it as part of your privacy policy to put people on notice.
Again, don’t worry about writing the legalese on your own and making mistakes.
You can easily grab our Privacy Policy, which gives you the cookie policy as a bonus for free!
See how our customer Chris uses our VIP legal bundle to protect his businesses.
5. Website Accessibility Statement
Talking about legal pages for a website, you also need to post a Website Accessibility Statement on your website in the footer section.
So you need to make your website ADA-compliant to avoid expensive website accessibility lawsuits.
ADA website compliance is a requirement of federal ADA regulations.
What is ADA compliance? That’s a good question!
ADA website compliance refers to the Americans With Disabilities Act that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities.
President Bush signed ADA website compliance in 1990, then later, in 2010, the US Department of Justice released ADA Standards for Accessible Design.
For the purposes of the ADA, a disability is generally a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity.
This means that your website must be accessible to ALL users, including people with hearing or visual impairments.
Now, I know many website owners find the ADA confusing, and you may not know exactly how to comply with this law, so the best way to ensure compliance is to get our ADA bundle that includes a checklist and website accessibility statement you’ll need.
Our customers and clients love it as shown below:
You learn exactly what to do to make your website accessible to everyone.
You also get peace of mind knowing you won’t be the target of an expensive ADA lawsuit costing you tens of thousands of dollars.
As part of this bundle, I even recommend the best WordPress plugin for ADA to make complying even easier.
6. Copyright Notice
A copyright notice makes it clear to your visitors that the content on your website legally belongs to you, and they can’t use it without your express permission.
This type of notice also gives you legal recourse if you discover copyright infringement.
Learn more in this article on what to do if someone steals your content.
I also recommend signing up for my website legal audit here to make sure your website is completely legal.
7. Comment Policy
Another thing you may want to include in your terms and conditions is a comment policy, which explains your expectations of website visitors regarding comment handling.
Related Post: 15 Documents Needed to Sell a Business – Checklist
It helps you prevent the disrespect of the chances of people disrespecting anti-discrimination laws and easily regulate comments.
It can also have its own separate page.
But you get this policy as part of our Terms and Conditions template.
Also, if you decide to become your own boss by starting an online business then here are some tools worth trying:
- Jasper to create content 10x faster
- AI Originality to check for plagarism
- Rankiq to rank your articles on the first page of Google
- Freshbooks or Quickbooks for your business accounting
- Kartra for your email marketing
Quillbot to paraphrase text quickly
8. Refund Policy
Like the comment policy above, you can add refund policies as part of your terms and conditions or create a new page for them.
For example, if you sell courses, you should have your refund policy clearly outlined in your Terms and Conditions.
A refund policy page makes it clear when you will issue refunds.
So, customers and clients know what to expect, which is often an essential part of people deciding whether or not to purchase something from you.
- If you’d like to rank your blog posts on the FIRST page of Google then I highly recommend using this amazing SEO tool from day one! Learn more by watching the video here.
9. Protection of Intellectual Property Policy
You also need to protect your intellectual property rights such as trademarks or patents that make your website unique.
You should create a page with legal information relating to them.
Instead of posting a separate page for them, I have incorporated these essential legal provisions in my Terms and Conditions template.
You can do the same.
Learn exactly what you can trademark here.
And if you need a trademark search done for your business name or product then book that service with me here.
10. About Page
As more people become wary of whether a business is legit or not, an About Page is essential now as it builds trust.
This page provides your website visitors with important information about you and your company’s history.
This differentiates you from other businesses and is essential for search engines to verify your experience and expertise on a topic.
Grab my About page template for FREE below to create a killer About me page in minutes:
11. License Agreement
Now if you license content then another legal page you must post on your website is a License Agreement (aka License Terms).
A license agreement is a legal contract between two parties, where the “Licensor”(owner of the work or intellectual property) grants permission to the “Licensee” (the individual or company obtaining the license) to use their intellectual property for free or in exchange for a license fee.
This legal template is needed to outline the terms and restrictions of that licensing arrangement.
It is designed to safeguard ANY intellectual property rights.
Whether you’re a content creator, digital marketer, artist, photographer, or software developer, this template provides ALL the legal language you need to license your work securely.
FYI: Whether you are a WordPress beginner, looking to grow your established WordPress blog, or scaling up to Enterprise WordPress needs, this may be one of the best Managed WordPress Hosting decisions you can make.
FAQs on What Legal Pages a Website Should Have
Below are answers to common questions I get as a lawyer.
What legal pages does a website need?
All websites are required to have the following pages to comply with laws and protect themselves legally:
- A GDPR-compliant privacy policy (California Consumer Privacy Act – CCPA and other states with similar laws and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act – COPPA)
- Disclaimer
- Terms and conditions
- Consent and cookie policy
- ADA compliance
You can get all of these legal pages in our VIP legal bundle and then add the ADA legal bundle to your order at checkout.
But several other pages showcase you’re a legitimate business and protect your intellectual property from other lawsuits and problems, such as:
- Patents, trademarks, and corporate policies
- Copyright notices
- Comment policy
- Refund policy
- About page
- By the way, did you know that this all-in-one business tool can run your entire business online? You will be blown away!
What is required by law on a website?
There are certain legal requirements and essential pages for every website as they must adhere to privacy and data protection laws, such as:
- A privacy policy
- Terms and conditions (sometimes known as terms of use or terms of service)
- A disclaimer
Every website owner must also adhere to web accessibility standards set by the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).
Some niches may need to follow best practices and requirements for anti-spam, plagiarism, copyright, and e-commerce laws or legal, financial, and health matters.
What legal pages should a blog have?
Are you blogging legally?
Blogs are required by law to have the same legal pages as any other website, including:
- A GDPR-compliant privacy policy (California Consumer Privacy Act – CCPA and other states with similar laws and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act – COPPA)
- Disclaimer
- Terms and conditions
- Cookies consent and policy
- ADA compliance
More often than not, they earn money through affiliate marketing, so they must have proper disclosures about their relationships with brands and products.
As a blogger and business lawyer myself, I have included all of the above legal provisions in our Starter, Premium or VIP legal bundle.
Is it legal to have a website without a privacy policy?
It is not legal to have a website without a privacy policy unless you don’t collect people’s personal information.
If you collect information that identifies someone, you must have a privacy policy page, as national and international laws require.
Even if you are not directly selling products or services, if your site collects any user data—such as email addresses for newsletters or tracking data through cookies—you are obligated to inform users of your data practices.
Not only does a privacy policy enhance transparency and build trust with your visitors, but it also helps you comply with regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the United States.
Therefore, all website owners should add a clear and comprehensive privacy policy.
How do you check if a website is legal?
Here are 5 steps you can take to ensure your website is legal:
-
Research applicable laws and regulations:
Start by researching the laws and regulations in your location that pertain to websites and online businesses.
This can include data privacy laws, marketing and advertising regulations, copyright and trademark laws, and more.
-
Consult with a lawyer:
If you are unsure about which laws apply to your website or how to comply with them, you should schedule a consultation with a lawyer like me who specializes in Internet law.
I will guide how to ensure your website is legally compliant as shown by 1000s of testimonials here.
This is exactly what my customer Rachel did here (she booked a call with me before launching her online business).
You can even book a website legal audit service with me here.
-
Post Essential Website Legal Pages
Make sure that your website has a clear and easy-to-understand privacy policy, Disclaimer and terms and conditions in place.
These documents should outline the rights and responsibilities of both you as the website owner and your visitors.
Follow the list above to include additional legal pages on your website.
Check out this blog post to learn more about website legal requirements.
-
Keep up with updates and changes:
Laws and regulations related to websites are constantly evolving, so it’s important to regularly review and update your website policies to ensure compliance.
That’s why with our legal templates and bundles, you get FREE lifetime updates!
This way, you don’t have to worry about paying extra in the future to update your policies. If the laws change, your templates get updated for free!
-
Monitor user feedback:
Pay attention to any user complaints or concerns regarding your website, as they may indicate potential legal issues that need to be addressed.
Unfortunately, I know many business owners who purchase my legal contract templates AFTER facing a legal issue with a client.
You should make sure to avoid legal issues by having proper contracts in place from the beginning.
Who owns a website legally?
The owner of a website is typically the person or entity that has registered the domain name and created the content on the site.
However, ownership can become more complicated when multiple individuals are involved in creating and managing the website.
So it’s important to clearly define and document ownership rights in any agreements or contracts related to the website.
This can help avoid conflicts and legal disputes down the road.
Additionally, if a business or organization owns a website, your Operating Agreement should designate a specific individual as legally responsible for its operation and compliance with laws and regulations.
Overall, it’s important for all parties involved in creating and maintaining a website to have a clear understanding of their respective ownership rights and responsibilities.
Final Thoughts on Website Legal Pages
Now you know the legal obligations of a website!
You also learned what legal pages in WordPress (or any other platform) you need to add.
No matter what type of business you run, you must have the essential legal pages I mentioned in this blog post.
I know legal stuff can be overwhelming and hard to understand, so many people choose to ignore it, which can cause all kinds of legal problems for online entrepreneurs.
These essential legal templates are vital to protecting your business legally.
And before you ask, free legal templates don’t protect you as they often lack the must-have clauses.
You can read more on why business owners don’t trust free legal agreements.
That’s why the best tip I can give you is to purchase legal page templates written by an attorney like those we sell.
All of ours come with lifetime updates for free. It’s a win-win all the way around!
Our most affordable option if you need multiple legal templates is our VIP legal bundle. It includes 16 of the most important legal agreements and 16 extraordinary bonuses.
Related Posts to Website Legal Pages
In addition to learning about legal pages for websites,you should join my Facebook group here to connect with me and other entrepreneurs.
This blog offers many legal tips for entrepreneurs here.
Check out more helpful blog posts next:
Protect Your Business With This Confidentiality Agreement
Avoid Legal Issues With This Media Release Agreement Template
Why You Need a Podcast Guest Relate Form (Template Inside)
23 Legal Tips for Small Business Owners From a Lawyer
Lawyer’s Guide on How to File a BOI for LLC Correctly
15 Secrets of Best Accounting Practices for Small Business
How to License Content Correctly and What Contract You’ll Need
What’s an AI Disclaimer and Why You Need it (plus template)
Top 17 Social Media Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in Business
Single Member LLC vs Multi-Member LLC: Complete Guide
25 Tips of Financial Advice for Entrepreneurs as a Guide
VISIT THIS FREEBIES PAGE TO GET 5 AWESOME FREE BUSINESS, BLOGGING AND LEGAL TIPS!
Below are some more helpful blog posts, legal tips, tools, and resources that you should check out next:
- Beautiful Pinterest templates to increase traffic to your blog!
- What’s an LLC and when to form one?
- How to Legally Protect Your Book (with Proper Copyright Notice and Disclaimer Examples)
- AI writing tool to write blog posts 10x faster, create social media content, videos, and any kind of content to save time in business
- This SEO tool makes sure your blog posts rank on the first page of Google!
- Manage your accounting effortlessly with this amazing tool.
MORE TOOLS TO GROW YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS
- TubeBuddy to grow your YouTube channel, and this is another great tool for YouTube SEO.
- Free SEO Masterclass to learn how to optimize your blog posts for SEO to rank on Google. You can also buy this awesome bundle of ebooks instead if you prefer ebooks over video training.
- Best accounting software to manage profit and loss and more!
- Best payroll service (super affordable, too)
- A great all-in-one business platform for hosting your course, email communications, sales pages, and more!
- This paraphrasing tool to create original work for the client
- A professional theme for your website
- Millionaire blogger’s secrets here and tons of valuable resources.
- How to start your blogging business and make money online
- How to make money from affiliate marketing
- The Best Freelance Writing Contract Template (for writers and clients)
- Guest Blogger Agreement to publish guest posts on your website legally and avoid any copyright infringement, Media release agreement to be able to use other people’s photos, videos, audio, and any other content legally, Privacy policy on your website to ensure your blog’s legal compliance, Disclaimer to limit your legal liability, Terms and Conditions to set your blog rules and regulations! Get all of these templates at a discounted rate in one of my best-selling VIP legal bundle here.
