The Stress-Free Way to Ensure Your Website and Blog are Legally Compliant… in Less than 15 minutes!
Introduction
Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. This is important information that I found extremely helpful when setting up my website and blog. Hopefully you find this information valuable and it makes the process of setting yourself up online as stress-free as possible!
If you’re anything like me, I decided on a life of entrepreneurship because I have a passion that I want to share with the world, and want to do it on my terms, not while working for someone else. The worst part about my 9 to 5 job was feeling like I was giving all my energy, time, and attention to building and supporting someone else’s dream, while mine sat in the background, collecting dust.
So when I decided to leap off the 9 to 5 train, and live life as a business owner, I knew that I wanted to do it with as little stress and anxiety as possible. When I left my job, I had been under so much mental duress and suffering from so much anxiety that I knew I didn’t want to bring any of that into my new business. I understood that starting a business would be hard work, but I also knew I needed to approach it in a smart way- meaning, work smarter, not harder. So I did a lot of research to try to find where I could delegate versus what I could do myself.
To Delegate: The Not-So-Fun Legal Stuff
Since I am not a lawyer, I knew that spinning my wheels trying to make sure my website and blog had all the appropriate legal disclaimers and policies on it was not a good use of my time. But I also knew that I wanted my business legally protected as soon as I hit PUBLISH!
Operating as an LLC, I understood that there were some protections there, but I soon learned that I was not totally protected, even under the LLC’s structure. Scary and stressful stuff, right?! So, I want to share with you today the four most important pages that I have on my website, and no, that does not include my Home page or About Me page, as well as what I did to ensure that my LLC was a legally separate entity from myself and my family’s assets. T
his information is universal, so no matter what your niche is, you need to hear this! And the best part – I got all of these pages up on my site and blog in less than 15 minutes! I was then able to move on to the fun stuff, like working with and supporting my clients!
Here are the top four pages you need on your website and blog to be legally protected from lawsuits, audits, and fines
A privacy policy is necessary in order to disclose how your website and blog collects and processes data. The privacy policy will tell your users:
How you collect users’ data and why
The methods used to collect personal data, i.e. cookies
How users can limit the data that is shared with you through your site or blog
A privacy policy is important because it helps improve transparency, gives users more control over their data, and can help establish trust between the user and the website owner, since both will understand what is expected of each party.
It is important to know that even if your main target audience isn’t outside of your home country or state, you still need a privacy policy that covers all countries and territories that have a legal requirement. Personally, learning that made my head spin, so I knew I wanted to have a policy that covered me and my business universally.
Disclaimers are an important legal page to have on your website and blog because they protect your business against legal liability by stating that you and/or your business won’t be held accountable for how people use your website and/or blog, or for any potential damages they may suffer as a result of the content on the site.
In its essence, a terms and conditions page acts as a contract between your site and your site’s users. A terms and conditions page needs to outline the rules and restrictions of using your site. This also helps ensure the protection of your intellectual property on your site against theft.
At a bare minimum, you need to have these three legal pages on your website and blog to make sure you are legally compliant. But what about the fourth legal page I mentioned?
When doing my research on how to best go about getting my legal pages set up on my site, I learned that websites are covered by the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act. What this means is, that if your website is not an “accessible website”, you may be setting yourself for lawsuits. Having an accessible site means that it must be usable by disabled users, including those that are visually or auditory impaired. One of the easiest ways to make sure that your site meets the definition of being an “accessible website” is learning about how to make your site accessible, including adding plugins, alt-text to all images, and including an Accessibility Statement in your footer along with your other legal pages.
Now that you know what four legal pages you should have on your site and blog at a minimum, how do you do it?
The easiest, most affordable, and most stress-free way to get your blog and website legally compliant is to purchase these essential legal pages in a bundle. Amira at A Self Guru is a lawyer and business owner who created these legal templates to make it simpler, more cost-effective, and less stressful for other business owners to ensure their businesses are legally protected online. Once I received the templates, it was super simple for me to insert my business information, create four new pages on my site and blog, add page links in my footer, and done! It literally took less than 15 minutes from start to finish! And the moment I was able to hit publish with those pages on my footer, I immediately felt more at ease and confident that I was set up for success (in a legal way) in my new business venture.
Here is an example of what my footer on my website and blog looks like:
An added bonus to working with Amira is that because she is a business owner as well, she also provides helpful tips for business owners from her own personal experience of running a business, even if it is unrelated to the legal side of things. Her customer support is also outstanding and is super responsive to any questions or concerns. Her expertise and knowledge has been invaluable to me as I continue to learn and grow as a business owner.
Now, what about making sure your LLC is legally separate from yourself and your assets?
Did you know that just setting your business up as an LLC isn’t enough to entirely protect yours and your family’s personal assets, like your bank account, home, etc? Without an LLC Operating Agreement, you cannot actually prove that your LLC is a legally separate entity and YOU could be legally held responsible for the business’ debts, losses, and lawsuits. What an LLC Operating Agreement does is legitimize your business and separates your personal assets from that of your business. The LLC Operating Agreement template, just like the legal pages template, was easy to populate with my specific business information in less than no time at all. Having this agreement has again helped me feel more secure and confident in how my business is set up and eases any stress and anxiety that I had about the legitimacy of my corporate structure.
Conclusion
Hopefully this information has been helpful and helps you feel like you don’t have to do all of the not-so-fun legal stuff for your business on your own. Our mental health and well-being is just as important as our physical well-being, which is why I am always looking for ways to minimize the amount of stress and anxiety in my life. As business owners, there will always be stress, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t try to minimize it where we can. Below are some links to the resources that were helpful in getting my legal pages set up, as well as making my LLC truly a legally separate entity. Thanks for following along and good luck in your business journey!
This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. Purchasing via the links helps to support my small business and I am very grateful for your readership and support! Please know that I only recommend products and/or services that I have personally used and loved! Please read full disclosure for more information.
Jessica Sweet has always had a passion for helping others. Her nurturing nature, fascination with the human body and love for problem solving inspired her to open her own holistic wellness practice, combining her skills as a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, Hatha and Prenatal Yoga Teacher, and Reiki Practitioner to provide a beautifully balanced holistic path of wellbeing for her clients. Jessica’s practice is deeply rooted in the philosophy that everyone is unique and has their own personal path to wellbeing, which allows her to provide a truly personalized wellness program to each person she works with, considering their biological individuality and personality, as well as their personal goals and dreams.
Get to know
Jessica!
What is
Nutritional Therapy?
Nutritional Therapy is an integrative and holistic approach to nutrition that operates under the philosophy that each and every person is a biologically unique individual and that optimal health and balance within the body can be achieved by addressing each person’s individual needs. According to the Nutritional Therapy Association, ” …the myriad of health problems plaguing modern society result from weaknesses in the body’s physiological foundations brought on by poor nutrition.” Within the body, there is an underlying innate intelligence, that when “asked” the right questions, can provide insight and answers into what the body needs to be able to heal itself. As a nutritional therapy practitioner, the assessment techniques that Jessica uses when working with clients provides her with the tools she needs to ask the right questions, see beyond the symptoms, and to get to the root of the problem. Using the unique information that she gathers from each person about any nutritional deficiencies they may have or systems that are performing less than optimally, she then develops a nutritional program that is tailored to each individual’s biological needs as well as their own personal health goals. When balance and harmony is restored within the body, it has the ability to obtain what it needs to achieve and maintain optimal health simply by using food in its pure, natural state. Because every person is a bioindividual, nutritional therapy can be beneficial to all women, of all ages, and regardless of their issues or their ideals for optimal health, including:
Fatigue
Weight Loss & Weight Gain
Fertility
Healthy Pregnancy
Postpartum Recovery
PMS
Menopausal Symptoms
Hormone Imbalances
Mood & Behavioral Issues
Skin Issues
Cravings
Digestive Discomfort & Dysfunction
Click the photos to learn about my daily must-haves.
My essentials
I start my day with a glass of warm water to help my digestive system get fired up, as well as hydrate the cells in my body after a long night's sleep. I then, no matter what, eat a protein packed breakfast, such as eggs cooked any way, or, a smoothie with protein and collagen. Starting my day with super foods helps ensure a lasting GLOW!
Breakfast
Even if it is just a round or two of cat cow, or some gentle spinal twists, some sort of yoga & stretching is a daily must for me! The benefits of yoga go far beyond the physical, but I truly do feel like this daily practices helps ignite my GLOW!
Yoga
I spend 4 minutes a day visualizing my dreams and 15 to 20 in meditation. No matter what time of day I do it, I always feel present and re-energized afterward (almost like taking a power nap!) This daily practice also helps me proactively combat stress & anxiety, and ensures that neither of these things can dim my GlOW.
Meditation & Visualization
Spending a few moments at the start of each day writing down what I am grateful for sets me up to have a positive mindset for the rest of the day and helps me stay present in each moment. This, along with visualization and meditation, help mitigate the effects of stress & anxiety and ensure that I continue to look and feel my best!
Gratitude Journal
My morning coffee has turned into a legit ritual since I got my Chemex. The slow, pour-over method not only produces AMAZINGLY delicious coffee, but also helps me not feel so rushed and chaotic in the morning. My daily coffee ritual reminds me to enjoy the little things. Tip: I also add a scoop or two of grass-fed hydrolyzed collagen peptides to further boost my inner & outer GLOW!