I am no lawyer and I am a blog about the outdoors, so why am I writing about legal pages? BECAUSE OF HOW IMPORTANT THEY ARE. We often ignore these little tiny print things at the bottom of a website like privacy policy, disclaimer, terms & conditions, etc. So if you were ever considering writing your own blog, it might not even cross your mind!
LEGAL TEMPLATES TABLE OF CONTENTS
Intro & Why I’m Talking Legal on a Hike & Travel Bog
I was once like you. I was once the reader of blogs and not the writer. I always wondered what it would be like to have my own blog and how it must feel to earn money online and be able to travel. Yes, I read travel blogs and hiking blogs all the time, yet knew shit about legality or starting a blog! I WISH someone had told me about these sooner and I’m glad I found them before it was too late.
I had already begun posting affiliate links all over my blog before learning that these legal pages are REQUIRED BY LAW. Since the only types of blogs I was really reading had nothing to do with law, I never came across anything like this on anyone else’s blog and was just emulating what I would see on websites that I wanted to be like.
WRONG. Not how you do it, Lizzie! You NEED legal pages. I personally think EVERY blog, no matter what blog topic they write about, should have a link to legal pages because these are one of the most important things you need before launching.
I am a business owner, so I know the importance of legal protection. I ran a cleaning business before starting this blog and I used to work under the table until I learned being insured and licensed could DOUBLE my profits.
Not only that, but if I hadn’t been insured, I would have been paying out of pocket to fix an entire OVEN because I broke the glass door during a move-out cleaning. Can you imagine how mad the owners could have been?
We hear about people being sued left and right, but we tend to think “that’ll never happen to me.” I know I was thankful I had insurance the day I messed up for the first time in 10+ years of cleaning.
And that’s why I wanted to share these blog legal pages with you. I was THIS CLOSE to starting my blog without these three KEY items: (Back to Top)
Legal Pages REQUIRED By Law:
1. Privacy Policy: A Privacy Policy is REQUIRED by law. It let’s people who visit your website know how you collect and use visitor data, which you do, to provide a better user experience. If you have any visitors from the EU, it must also be GDPR compliant. This protects you from lawsuits and legal liabilities and shows that you care about your visitors patronage and privacy. Need more info? Click here.
2. Terms and Conditions: This is basically an agreement between you and your site visitors that outlines the rules and expectations held between you. It educates users on how they can properly use your site. It addresses what you can do if any user violates your intellectual property rights and what will happen in case of any disputes. This covers things like your refund & exchange policies (if you have anything for sale), your right to terminate someone’s website access if they don’t comply with your terms, etc. More info? Click here.
3. Disclaimer: This basically exists to protect you from the person who tries to blame you for their life problems. If I tell you to go drink a bottle of Lysol to kill the corona-virus and you do it and nearly die, you can’t sue me. I would never do that, but you basically get the point. Every website owner provides info from the best of their knowledge, but it’s always possible that they can be wrong. Like if I review a product I love and a user’s experience with the product causes them harm, they can’t legally come after me. More info? Click here. (Back to Top)
Why I Chose to Purchase my Legal Pages
I’m so glad I found Amira’s legal pages in time. If you still struggle to understand why you need this, please click around her blog. She is an actual lawyer, unlike me, which gives me peace of mind knowing that these pages are written right.
Honestly, at first, I thought to go find a free resource because I’d already invested a bit of money on a blog that was not yet monetized. However, after pouring over google and mulling through my thoughts, I came to the conclusion that this was too important to glaze over and risk ending up with legal pages that aren’t so legal. After all, your blog is YOUR BUSINESS! Are you going to treat your business, your profession, your livelihood as a gamble? Of course not.
That’s why I chose to go with Amira’s Legal Starter Package. Her templates are written by her, a full-time REAL LIFE lawyer. It was a great deal and it would cost me way more to sit down with a lawyer in person to lay these out and could cost me even MORE in the long term had I chosen to just go with a free template or worse, attempted to write them myself.
If you have any intention whatsoever of making money off your blog, YOU
MUSTHAVELEGALPAGES! (Back to Top)
My Review of the Starter Legal Bundle
I personally could not be happier with my purchase. It literally took me 10 minutes to make my blog secure and legal and it was so easy to set up. It saved me countless hours of researching free templates and trying to figure out if I was doing it right because knowing these were written by a professional lawyer gave me peace of mind. It’s one and done!
If you don’t have this yet and you want to start a blog or HAVE a blog without this, YOU NEED THIS.
I loved my purchase with Amira not only because it was so easy to set up, but because she offered so many free bonuses. Just in the package I bought alone, she not only offers the privacy policy, terms & conditions, and disclaimer above, but she also includes: GDPR Visitor’s Rights Policy, GDPR Email Marketing Policy, Cookie Policy, Earnings Disclaimer, Testimonials & Product Reviews Disclaimer, Sponsored Post Disclaimer, Lawful Use of Website Clause, Third Party Links Disclaimer, and a Mandatory Arbitration Clause.
At the time, I didn’t even know what any of this was and I’m so glad I found her because now that I’ve learned how to properly create a blog via taking a course with Create & Go, I know I would have been creating a shit blog otherwise and ended up with a lot more headaches.
I not only loved how generous she was with what’s included in each legal bundle package, but that she was generous in how much she gives to her affiliate marketers, which you can become with her if you bought your legal pages from her!
This has given me hope towards monetizing my blog because some companies require you to already have X amount of traffic before you even qualify just to receive pennies on the dollar recommending things you’d ALREADY recommend. I wondered how I could possibly have that much traffic before starting to make money without burning out! This gave me a chance.
She also offers countless and I mean countless different legal templates for any type of website. (Back to Top)
Other Legal Pages You May Need
Whether you’re a guest blogger for someone else’s blog, a life coach, a product sales website, Amira has a legal template for you. I was overwhelmed by her list of resources when I first saw her site. You may be too, but I’m going to lay out everything she offers below plain and simple.
Another great thing I loved was how quickly her email support answered any questions I had. You definitely want to sign up with her and have your pages written by a true lawyer. Here is a list of some other packages you can buy with her
Above, I mentioned the starter package which is what I got my blog started with.
She also offers a similar package which includes everything I mentioned above AND 3 MORE templates and 4 MORE bonuses. This is the premium package. The premium package includes:
- Sponsored Post Contract Template: This protects you and the business with whom you are working to create any kind of sponsored content. This could be whether is is on instagram, facebook, another blog, YouTube. If you are being sponsored to write about a certain product or if you are sponsoring someone to write about your product, this is necessary. If the brand suddenly decides not to pay you and you don’t have this template, you are an SOL.
2. Freelance Contractor Template: This is for social media managers, virtual assistants, freelancers and people looking to hire freelancers. This covers things like legal rights to intellectual property, how and when you will pay/get paid, and how to terminate the contract without owing each other money. This is really important if you are or plan to hire an independent contractor. This can also be found as part of the freelance bundle.
3. Guest Blogger Agreement Template: Ever wonder how some people write so much on their blogs? Did you pay attention to the author? Sometimes the owner of the blog isn’t always the writer of the post. That’s what this template is for. It will resolve any disputes over who gets own the legal rights of the post, protects from copyright violations, allows you to use guest posts in your marketing, and more!
The extra four bonuses that the PREMIUM legal bundle includes are: mediation agreement template, late payment fee legal clause, non-solicitation & non-recruit clause and non-compete agreement.
As you can see, she covers quite a lot. And that’s only the premium package, which I would have bought in a heartbeat with the budget for it. However, I believe you can upgrade at any time!
She also offers a V.I.P. Legal Bundle, which is the MOST comprehensive of all. It includes everything from the Premium and Starter bundles, plus 10 MORE TEMPLATES and 2 more bonuses. This is like the crème de la crème, the mother of all legal packages. Jesus, if we need any more legal items to run a website, my brain might explode! The additional 10 templates included with the V.I.P. Legal Bundle are:
1. Confidentiality Agreement Template: If you are hiring someone to work for your website or company or even if you just want to bounce ideas off of someone without someone stealing your company’s ideas or products, this exists to protect you. Any time you are giving someone access to your company information, this is something they would sign to prevent copying your ideas and becoming your competitor. This also comes in a bundle for freelancers.
2. Design Service Agreement Template: This is for if anyone is working on the design for your website. It would define any expectations and outline exactly what the expectations from the design project are, all while protecting you and your client legally. You can also get this as part of a DESIGN BUNDLE, which includes everything you need to get started with your Design Service Website.
3. Affiliate Agreement Template: If you are planning to do any sort of affiliate marketing on your website, you must have this template. This is for you hiring affiliate marketers, not you as an affiliate marketer. You may remember having to “agree” to something like this if you signed up for any affiliate program. This is what allows Amazon to terminate affiliate marketers who are promoting via email or text (two things that Amazon’s affiliate agreement do not allow). Buy this template before hiring any affiliate marketers!
4. Partnership Agreement Template: This is for if two or more people agree to run a business together. This lays out all the terms about how the partners will run the business and protects from things like one partner desiring to liquidate the business when the other does not, how much profit each partner receives, how much work each partner has to do as part of their duties in the business and more!
5. Media Release Agreement Template: This gives you the right to use someone else’s intellectual property with or without paying. This is to obtain legal rights to things like reviews, testimonials, having a guest on your YouTube channel or using someone else’s photos on your blog. You are otherwise potentially infringing on someone’s privacy rights or other legal matters.
6. Sweepstakes Terms & Conditions: When you host a giveaway, there are several state, federal and local laws to comply with to avoid risk of having your business shut down. This template defines who is eligible to enter and how you will select winners and notify them. It also includes social media disclaimers and an affidavit that the winner must sign to release you from any legal claims they try to make against you.
7. LLC Operating Agreement: This separates you from your business so that if your business ends up with financial problems, it doesn’t affect your personal assets. If your business was sued for example, they could not also come after your home or any money outside your business. The operating agreement clarifies that you are two separate entities and without it, your personal assets could be at risk! This can also be found in the freelance bundle.
8. Coaching Agreement Template: Offering coaching services? Use this template to ensure you don’t get sued by a client. It also outlines when and how you get paid so that you get paid in a timely manner, your refund policies, and defines what people should expect from you as a coach. It’s a super easy and legal way to make sure the Coach-Client relationship is understood by both parties.
9. Consulting Agreement Template: This protects you whether you are the client looking for a consultant or the consultant providing services. It outlines what services are being provided, payment terms, legal provisions to protect business confidentiality and intellectual property, and more!
10. Website Sale Agreement Template: This protects you as a buyer or as a seller if you are wanting to sell your website or business for profit. It details purchase price, transferring of intellectual property rights, website identity, and more!
10 whole legal templates in one V.I.P. Bundle! And that’s IN ADDITION to the other 6 I previously mentioned, plus all the bonuses. Lastly, the V.I.P. Bundle also includes three more bonuses: attorney fees for prevailing party legal clause, Amira’s top 10 paying affiliate programs and her secret pitch to get influencers to promote your products.
Like I said, it’s a bit overwhelming isn’t it? Especially if you are new to blogging like me, I was thinking WHAT DO I BUY? That’s why I settled on the starter bundle for now.
You can also buy each of the templates individually! So let’s say you’re a starter website and want to run a sweepstakes to drive traffic. Maybe you don’t know if you need the full package yet, so you would get the required starter bundle (which includes privacy policy, terms & conditions and disclaimer) and also individually purchase the sweepstakes template.
Here is a list of all of the templates she offers: (Back to Top)
She also offers several bundle packages to help businesses choose what’s best for them:
- The Legal Bundle– I discussed this extensively above. For people starting any kind of website! It has 3 tiers: Starter Bundle, Premium, and V.I.P. Don’t forget the bonuses!
- The Freelance Bundle– This includes everything you need to get started as a freelancer: Confidentiality Agreement, Freelance Agreement & LLC Agreement, plus bonuses!
- The Design Bundle– For designers getting started, this includes the design contract template, affiliate marketing template, privacy policy, disclaimer, and terms & conditions, plus bonuses!
- Transaction Coordinator Bundle– for real estate transactions. This includes transaction coordinator agreement, independent contractor agreement, privacy policy, disclaimer and terms & conditions
With so much to choose from at so many different levels of pricing, I really think you can’t go wrong with this.
I really hope you found this post useful if you’ve been eyeing my blog wondering how I got started or already have a blog and didn’t know (like me) that this is necessary!
For some other things that helped me get started, be sure to check out my how to start a blog post I created specifically for curious visitors as well. I know it’s not related to hiking, travel and mental health, but it is related to having a blog and I first began wanting a blog by reading ones in my field of interest.
That’s why I found it important to share with you- to get the word out so that all the newbie bloggers like I once was are well-informed and protected without having to leave their favorite type of blog! Otherwise, you’ll find me on the trails and I’ll be continuing to post health-conscious content, fun adventure content, and all the in between.
Happy trails and here’s to adventures in the online world! (Back to Top)
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