At the bottom of every website, you’ve likely noticed links to legal notices. A simple privacy policy is usually the most common. You’ll also find terms of use, earning disclaimers, cookie policies, and more. But how do you know which ones you need for your website? And where do you find them?
In this article, I’ll walk you through the recommended legal documents to protect your new interior design website.
Since building hundreds of websites over the years, I’ve scoured the internet for the simplest solution to get your website covered. But before we get to the resources, let’s talk about the suggested documents and why each of them is important.
First, you’ll want a simple privacy policy.
A simple privacy policy outlines how you and your website will collect, store, protect and use your website visitors’ data. A privacy policy is required when personal information or data is collected from visitors. This data includes everything from their names, email addresses, browsing preferences, and more.
Next, you’ll want a terms and conditions (or terms of use) document.
I like to think of a privacy policy as protection for your website visitors and a terms and conditions document as protection for you. This can also be referred to as a terms of use or terms of service. Iubenda explains this one pretty simply: “Terms of Service set the way in which your product, service or content may be used, in a legally binding way. They are crucial for protecting your content from a copyright perspective as well as for protecting you from potential liabilities.”
Next, you’ll want a cookie policy and cookie consent manager (or pop-up notification).
This one is a bit newer per the new GDPR regulations and EU Cookie laws. Essentially a cookie consent manager allows your website visitors to easily consent (or not) to you tracking their activity via cookies. Your consent manager or pop-up should also link to the specific cookies your site uses.
Wondering what cookies are? They actually have nothing to do with sweet treats. Termly describes cookies as “small text files that a website downloads to a user’s device in order to track their behavior on the website and remember their preferences.” They go on to state, “Cookies play a role in almost everything people do on the internet — from remembering user login information and online shopping cart items, to helping companies create targeted ads.”
In addition to these, you also might want to consider an earnings disclaimer policy.
If you participate in any affiliate programs or do any affiliate marketing, you’ll want to add an earnings disclaimer. When you share an affiliate link you’ll need to note that is an affiliate link and you’ll earn a commission if they sign up with your link. But it’s also a good idea to add an overall earnings disclaimer or affiliate disclaimer to the footer area alongside your other legal documents. This document should have a list of all of your affiliate partners.
Now that you have a clear picture of what website legal notices are recommended, let’s move on to how to create and publish these documents to protect your website.
You can certainly hire a lawyer and have them draft up these documents and then add them to your website. However, this can get costly and time-consuming. Any time a law changes you’ll need to go back and have them update the documents accordingly.
You could also Google free privacy policies, free terms and conditions, and free cookie consent managers but these free versions are usually unable to be tailored to your specific website and business needs.
Important! DO NOT copy someone else’s legal documents. Not only is this illegal and considered a copyright infringement but it’s not tailored to your business. There will likely be gaps that won’t cover your website fully.
My recommendation is to use a service like Termly.io to get all of these taken care of in one swoop.
You can get everything noted above for just $10/month when you pay annually. You can sign up for free and generate your first policy for free and then upgrade to begin creating the others.
Click here to get started with Termly.io and protect your website today.
Over the years I’ve used several different methods for my website legal notice. Termly.io remains the simplest and most streamlined.
I also like the ease of their setup and implementation on my website. There’s no guessing on what to include and they’re always on top of the ever-changing laws.
I’ve recorded a brief video walking you through the setup for my own website. My hope is it will not only give you a sneak peek at the software but walk you through the process of getting your website legally protected.
Regardless of what method you choose, the important thing is to choose something. This certainly is one of those fun parts of being a business owner, but it’s important to protect yourself and your business.
