How to Protect Your Website From Lawsuits With These 3 Things
COULD YOUR Website GET YOU SUED?THE 3 (minimum) THINGS YOU NEED For legal protection
Picture this. It’s 2001, and I’m a freshman in college, living in a dorm room. And everyday on my clunky-ass brick of a laptop, I log onto Livejournal and write in my web log – yeah, that’s what blogs were called back then. That’s where the term “blog” comes from. What was I blogging about? Bands I liked. Boys I had crushes on. People who were mean to me. My hopes for the future. Over the past (jeez) 21 years, blogs have morphed into something more. They’re no longer just a place to share your thoughts. Now, they can be a business – a career even – that supports you, your family, and your dreams.Even if blogging isn’t your sole business, it can be a major boost to the business you do run, by establishing yourself as an authority in your field, showing potential customers a glimpse of your expertise, and building trust with your audience. Being able to share your knowledge online and make money for it is one of the most beneficial developments that’s come out of the internet over the past two decades. That’s the kind of shift that can change the trajectory of your entire life. Or your kids’ entire lives. Talk about building generational wealth, right? But when you make money with your blog, there’s also the risk that you could lose money with your blog. And I’m not just talking about expenses.
I’m talking about lawsuits.
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legal protection against worst case scenarios
Maybe someone takes the advice you give and hurts themselves. They watch a video tutorial of yours about how to invest their money, or cook healthy vegan meals, or start a new weight lifting program for a big, juicy butt. And then, they lose a thousand dollars, cut off the tip of a finger while cooking, or throw out their back doing squats. (Or deadlifts. Ask me how I effed up my psoas in 2018.) Should people be responsible for their own choices? Yes, 100%. But do Americans love to sue people for some quick money? Also yes, 100%. The best and easiest way to protect yourself is buying a legal bundle that includes everything you need to operate your business safely online.
You can find free templates for legal protection online, but you have no way of verifying whether or not they actually protect you.
You could hire a lawyer, but you’ll be paying their hourly rate (up to $300/hr, dang), which could easily add up to thousands of dollars in expenses.And stealing the wording for these pages from other sites is a huge mistake–you have no way of knowing if they’re actually effective and legal, and which sections may have been adapted or reworded specifically for their business.Are you willing to gamble your business on a free template or a bad copy paste job?
EASY TO IMPLEMENT LEGAL protection BUNDLES FROM A SELF GURU
These are the templates for legal protection I use and recommend. Amira from A Self Guru is a lawyer who specifically created these templates for bloggers, freelancers, coaches and other online businesses. She has more than 10 years experience in business law, so she’s uniquely qualified to offer templates that include everything you need to run your website legally. Even the starter legal bundle for $197 contains a template for a Disclaimer page, Privacy Policy page and Terms and Conditions page – the minimum you should have to keep your business protected.
I’ll go into detail about what each page is and why you need it for legal protection, below.
LEGAL PROTECTION PAGE #1: A DISCLAIMER
That’s why you need a Disclaimer Page on your website. This is the page that provides legal protection from lawsuits where people claim something they read on your blog adversely affected their lives.Your Disclaimer Page limits your legal liability and responsibility. This is the page that says, hey, this blog is informational but I’m not responsible for what happens if you try something you read here and it goes wrong. You’ve probably signed a hundred disclaimers in your life. If you’ve ever gone on a zip line, hired a personal trainer, driven go-karts, or paid for any other voluntary activity where you could get hurt, you’ve signed a disclaimer. When you call your doctor and the first thing you hear is that message that says, “If this is a medical emergency, please hang up and dial 911,” that’s a disclaimer. They’re protecting themselves against the possibility that someone having a heart attack might call, not hear that message, and then die waiting for their doctor to call them back.
How It Applies to Your Legal Protection
If you’re writing blogs or articles with titles like “X Ways to…” or “How I…in X days,” your Disclaimer Page protects you by explicitly stating that just because you shared your advice or experience, it doesn’t mean that people are off the hook if they use your advice and don’t get the same results. Just by having this page on your site – even if people never read it line by line – protects you from getting sued for what you write about. 
LEGAL PROTECTION PAGE #2: A PRIVACY POLICY
Whether you realize it or not, your website is collecting information about the people who visit it. It’s your legal duty to inform visitors to your site what information you collect from them and how you use their personal information. If you’ve started your business recently, you may not have paid attention to the ruling that came down a few years back in Europe. In 2018, the European Union began enforcing General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which gives every European citizen the right to know how their personal information is being tracked and collected online. Even if wasn’t relevant to you at the time, you may remember how in May 2018 websites everywhere suddenly started making you consent to having your internet cookies tracked. That was the GDPR in action.
“But I don’t collect any personal information on my site, do I?”
You do. Your website tracks the IP addresses of visitors, which is personal information. If you have an email collection form on your site, you’re collecting names and emails for your visitors, which is personal information. If you sell a product or a service that people can pay for with a credit card online, that’s personal information. In the United States, California, Nevada, Delaware, Virginia and Colorado also have laws requiring privacy policies to protect their citizens. And unlike a disclaimer, having a Privacy Policy in place isn’t just a matter of risk – it’s a legal obligation for any business that operates online. You could be slapped with government fines if you don’t comply. The cost for an unintentional violation is a fine by the California Attorney General of up to $2500. PER VIOLATION. Yikes.This is not an optional page to have on your site, this legal protection is mandatory.
LEGAL PROTECTION PAGE #3: TERMS AND CONDITIONS
What are Terms and Conditions? They are the rules visitors to your website agree to when they visit your site. They’re where you can protect your intellectual property rights and copyright infringement (so no one can steal entire pages of your website copy and pass it off as their own – why does this happen so often?). Terms and Conditions detail your right to block someone from visiting your site if they’re abusive or harassing you, and where you can specify how and where any legal disputes will be resolved. And most importantly, it’s the page where you’ll state your refund or exchange policies for any products or services you sell. You know those horror stories where people get jerked around by a crappy customer who demands a refund for something they’ve already consumed or implemented or used? Terms and Conditions is the page that protects you from people looking to take advantage of your business for their own profit.
Terms and Conditions Aren't Just Legal Protection for Bloggers
Or let’s say you’re a coach selling coaching packages, and one of your client decides to sue you. Maybe you didn’t even do anything wrong, and they’re just going through some personal issues that make them lash out at the world, and they want to take you to court and get their money back for services you already provided. Your Terms and Conditions page sets the terms for where the legal disputes need to be resolved (the state you live in, not where they live) and how they will be resolved (like through arbitration rather than court). As you can see, Terms and Conditions are a powerful tool you can use to protect your business, well before any trouble comes along. This template alone has a $500 value, but could protect you from tens of thousands of dollars in loss if someone comes after you.
comprehensive bundles with three tiers of legal protection
LEgal protection starter bundle
The Starter Legal Bundle includes three core templates:
- Disclaimer Template
- GDPR and CCPA Compliant Privacy Policy Template
- Terms and Conditions Template
Combined, these three legal protection templates could cost you $1,500 elsewhere. Amira offers all three for just $197, total. They also come with nine bonuses, putting the total value of the package at an impressive $2,675:
- GDPR Visitors Rights Policy
- GDPR Email Marketing Policy
- Website Cookie Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer Template
- Testimonials and Product Review
- Disclaimer
- Sponsored Post Disclaimer
- Lawful Use of Website Clause
- Third-Party Links Disclaimer
- Mandatory Arbitration Clause
Legal protection premium bundle
If you have an additional $100 to spend, for $297 total, I recommend the Premium Bundle, which has a total value of $5,025. It includes legal protection like:
- GDPR and CCPA Compliant Privacy Policy Template
- Disclaimer Template
- Terms and Conditions Template
- Sponsored Posts Contract Template
- Independent Contractor Agreement Template (i.e. a contract to use for any freelance work you do, as a part of your online business or a side hustle)
- Guest Blogger Agreement Template
It comes with 13 bonuses, including:
- GDPR Visitors Rights Policy
- GDPR Email Marketing Policy
- Website Cookie Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer Template
- Testimonials and Product Review Disclaimer
- Sponsored Post Disclaimer
- Lawful Use of Website Clause
- Third-Party Links Disclaimer
- Mandatory Arbitration Clause
- Late Payment Fee Legal Clause (This clause in your contract means clients who pay late will owe you additional money for your trouble)
- Non-Solicitation and Non-Recruit Legal Clause
- Non-Compete Agreement
legal protection VIP BUNDLE
Finally, the VIP Bundle offers a huge total value of $11,925 for just $597, and contains 16 legal protection templates to keep your business safe in all kinds of ways, including:
- GDPR and CCPA Compliant Privacy Policy Template
- Disclaimer Template
- Terms and Conditions Template
- Sponsored Posts Contract Template
- Independent Contractor Agreement Template (i.e. a contract to use for any freelance work you do, as a part of your online business or a side hustle)
- Guest Blogger Agreement Template
- Confidentiality Agreement NDA Template
- LLC Operating Agreement Template
- Media Release Agreement Template
- Affiliate Program Agreement Template
- Sweepstakes (Giveaway) Terms and Conditions Template
- Coaching Agreement Template
- Consulting Agreement Template
- Website Sale Agreement Template
- Partnership Agreement Template
- Design Service Agreement Template
Those 16 templates could cover pretty much anything you need covered, but she also throws in another 16 freebies, including:
- GDPR Visitors Rights Policy
- GDPR Email Marketing Policy
- Website Cookie Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer Template
- Testimonials and Product Review Disclaimer
- Sponsored Post Disclaimer
- Lawful Use of Website Clause
- Third-Party Links Disclaimer
- Mandatory Arbitration Clause
- Late Payment Fee Legal Clause (This clause in your contract means clients who pay late will owe you additional money for your trouble)
- Non-Solicitation and Non-Recruit Legal Clause
- Non-Compete Agreement
- Attorney Fee for Prevailing Party Clause (aka, if you take me to court and lose because I protected myself with rock solid legal templates, you have to pay all my legal fees)
- My Top 10 Affiliate Programs
- Influencer Secret Pitch Template
All three packages come with private access to her members-only Facebook group, as well as Lifetime Free Updates – so you’ll have access forever to any language updates she makes on the templates you bought. Reading these lists of available templates may make you realize there are other things you’ll want protection for beyond the basics. I’ve personally used the Independent Contractor Contract Template for my own copywriting services, and it gives me incredible peace of mind that I’m protected against any potentially flaky clients, late payments, or disgruntled parties. (You can buy this template as a stand-alone template at the link above.)
Story Time (A Happy Ending)
A good friend of mine just had to take a client to small claims court over an unpaid balance. My friend did design work for this woman–and had her sign a contract. Once she delivered everything agreed upon in the contract, the woman decided she didn’t like the final product–but didn’t want to pay for additional hours to fix it. Instead, she vanished, stopped responding to emails and couldn’t be reached by phone. But that contract protected my friend. She hired a lawyer, filed a claim in small claims court, and had the woman served. The day before they went to court, the woman finally gave in and just paid her balance–and acted like she was doing my friend a huge favor, too. These kinds of people exist in the world. People who feel like the world owes them more than they have. Or who have been taught they need to fight to claim as much money or power as they can. Even normally rational and kind people can act out when they’re under stress–say, if they’re going through a divorce or their business is failing.
Protect yourself against the worst case scenario and you’ll always find yourself working with people who respect your time and skills.
So, what do you think?Do you want to save thousands of dollars paying a lawyer to draft the templates you need to operate your business legally?Are you ready to protect your business from unforeseen consequences, government fines, or unscrupulous customers?Isn’t it time to invest in yourself – your future, your work, your life – to grow the kind of business you’ve been dreaming of?Amira has everything you need to cover practically any aspect of your business that you want covered, from freelancing to coaching to guest blogging, selling on your site, and working with the media. Honestly, for me, the decision to buy legal templates from Amira was easy. The hard part was choosing which one. No matter which you choose, you’re in good hands. Even the three core templates look small listed out, but once you open them up, there are dozens of pages of legal writing provided, with many sections where you can detail exactly what terms you’d like enforced. Good things really do come in small packages. Or in this case, bundles. Like this post?Save it to Pinterest!
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