In episode 244 of the Late Night Internet Marketing podcast, host Mark Mason delves into the often-overlooked topic of legal pages on websites. Despite the fact that most website visitors never actually read these pages, they serve an important purpose in establishing the legal framework of the relationship between the website and its visitors.

Mark discusses the reasons why these pages are necessary, including regulations that require certain disclosures and the potential protection they can offer in the event of a lawsuit. He also touches on the potential value of legal pages in legitimizing a website in the eyes of potential customers.

Tune in for a comprehensive look at the often-overlooked topic of legal pages on websites.

 

Show Notes

 

We're going to talk about pesky legal pages, those pages that you know you are supposed to have but never really want to pay attention to and don't know why you need them in the first place. 

First off, what are these legal policy pages? If you go to any established, professional website and look at the footer of the site, you will see pages linked there that point to the website's terms of service. You will, oftentimes, find a disclaimer, which is especially important if there are commercial relationships that the website has with other parties that they need to disclose. You'll find a privacy policy, which talks about what they do with your data. You may find other legal pages like a refund policy and other things that are important to establish the underlying legal framework for the relationship that a visitor has with a website. 

They are just usually pages of legal gobbledygook that very few normal users ever read so what are the reasons to have them?

  1. There are often regulations that govern the legal space where you're operating in that require you to make certain statements or disclosures to people that are visiting your website. These requirements are generally put on to you by legislators in your area. 
  2. Properly constructed legal pages might offer you some protection from people who might want to sue you for one reason or another. It does not mean you won't get sued but it can offer you some protection in some cases. 
  3. The real value in legal pages is that, if a site visitor is trying to assess whether or not your page is one of the billions of scams on the internet, or if it's a legitimate page that they can trust, having legal pages can legitimize your website in the eyes of the visitor. It makes you look like a serious business owner that takes whatever you're doing seriously. These legal policy pages can help you make more money because people see you as a solid citizen in the online space.
  4. This is often a requirement for good results in SEO and for running paid traffic. If you start running paid traffic to a page that doesn't have policy pages, Google will detect that and they will de-rate the quality of your page. This means your traffic is going to cost more. I’ve heard stories of people outright getting their ad accounts banned because they didn't have the proper policy pages, privacy disclosures and things required by Google, Microsoft, Facebook and other paid traffic sources.
  5. A real user might contact you and inquire about what your policy is on something that's important. For example, they might want to understand if you are going to sell his email address or what your refund policy is. These policy pages can be helpful to real users. 

Hopefully, I've convinced you that you should have legal policy pages on your website. So now the question is, how do I do that? 

You can go to a website that provides these privacy policies for free, one of them is freeprivacypolicy.com. You give them information about your particular situation, your state, the name of your website, your company and so forth, and it generates a policy specifically for you. A disclaimer: they provide no warranties or guarantees. They do the best they can to give you a useful privacy policy but there is no substitute for actual professional legal advice. 

If you are a person who does not like to take risks, you understand the intrinsic value of these policies and you're willing to pay for them, I recommend that you check out Bobby Klinck. He is a Harvard-educated attorney, runs an online business and has some fantastic legal templates available on his site.

Another thing you can do is to find an attorney in your area that specializes in online business, sit down with them and describe to them what you're going to do. Have them architect policy templates that are specific to your business. That's the most expensive option.

 

Links Mentioned In This Episode

 

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