Do you want to add a privacy policy to your WordPress site?
A privacy policy page is a document expected by law that discloses the information you collect about visitors on your website.
It is recommended to add a privacy policy page to your website if you are a blogger, freelancer, or a business owner.
In this article, we will show you how to easily add a privacy policy to WordPress. We will also explain the different elements you must include in your privacy policy page.
What is the privacy policy and do you need it on your website?
All websites collected information about their visitors in different ways.
In many countries of the world(including the United States), websites are required by law to disclose the information they collect about their visitors, and how they will use their information.
Here are some ways in which a specific WordPress site collects user information.
- Name and email address in comment forms.
- Comment form cookie which remembers the user’s name or email address.
- User-submitted names and email addresses using the contact form.
- Name and email address submitted to sign up for email list.
- Information collected when users register on a website.
- Google Analytics tracking.
- Facebook page plugin and like button cookies.
- Other social media platform widgets that track users.
- Advertising programs like Google Adsense which track user.
All the websites on the internet should have a privacy policy page. It save your business from legal issues and also helps build consumer trust.
You also need to add a privacy policy page to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
For those who don’t know, GDPR is a European Union (EU) law that gives its citizens control over their personal data.
This law applies to all business (including by WordPress blogs) around the world, even if you are not from the EU countries.
What should you include in a Privacy Policy?
The basic requirements for a privacy policy are very simple. You need to list all the intended ways you collect the user information through your website.
A very simple privacy policy page should contain the following information:
- Information you collect about users visiting your website.
- Methods used to collect information, e.g. Cookies and web beacons, sign ups, registrations, comment forms, etc.
- Mention all third-party advertisers who collect user information on your website, like Google Adsense.
- Include a link to the privacy policy of each advertising program you participate in.
- How users can stop cookies and opt-out of third party advertisements.
- Your contact information so that users can access them if they have questions.
- There are more websites on the Internet that allow you to automatically generate text for your privacy policy or terms of service pages.
WordPress itself comes by a basic privacy policy generator that you can use.
Adding a Privacy Policy Page in WordPress
WordPress bulid it easy and simple to generate a privacy policy page for your website.It also gives you a general privacy policy template to use along with instructions on how to add content.
First, you need to go to the Settings »Privacy page. You will see that WordPress has already drafted a privacy policy page for you.
You can click on the button ‘Use this draft’ to save this page as your privacy policy.
You can also click the create new page button to create a new privacy policy page.WordPress will automatic make a new page and open it for you to make changes.
If you are using the default draft, you will need to click on the edit link to make changes and publish it.
Once you open the privacy policy page for editing, you will see a notification at the top with a link to the default WordPress privacy policy page guide.
The contents of the privacy policy also have instructions for editing and changing each section.
You will notice that it has section for different ways a WordPress website may collect personal information. For example, comments, login cookies, embeds, and more.
If you are creating contact form using WpForms Plugin then you can also create GDPR compliant forms.
After reviewing the privacy policy of your website, you can click on the Publish button to save changes you made.
Adding Link to Privacy Policy Page in WordPress
Many websites show the link of their term’s and condition in the footer area. The reason behind it is that they don’t want to show the link in the navigation menu but link still appears on every page in the footer area.
There are multiple ways to do this.
Let’s start with the easiest one.
Many WordPress themes come with widget-ready areas in the footer, also known as footer sidebars. If your theme has a footer widget area, you can go to the Appearance »Widget page to confirm it.
If you want to see the list of links to your informational page including the privacy policy in your theme you can use the navigation menu widget.
First, you need to create a new custom navigation menu.
Simply visit the the Appearance »menu page to create a new custom menu. You have to click on the link ‘create new menu’ at the top.
Next, you must provide a name for your navigation menu. After that, select the pages from the left column and then click on the Add to menu button.
You will see that your selected pages will appear under your newly created menu. Now you can arrange menu items by moving them up or down only.
once you are done all your store changes so don’t forget to click on the save menu button.
Now you can go Appearance » Widgets page and add the ‘Navigation Menu’ widget to your footer widget area.
Now in the widget settings select the custom menu you previously created and click the save button to store your changes.
You can now visit your website to see the privacy policy link in the footer area of your website.
We hope this article helped you learn how to add a privacy policy in WordPress. Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
