All websites collect information about their visitors in different ways. You could be required by law to offer a Privacy Policy that complies with various privacy regulations for websites that gather personal data through contact forms and technologies like Google Analytics. Your typical WordPress website collects a lot of data through forms, advertising programs, analytics, and social network integration.

In this article, we’ll look at the most hassle-free way to create one for any WordPress website

What is a Privacy Policy?

A Privacy Policy is a legally necessary document that details the data you gather about website users. Regardless of whether you are a blogger, independent contractor, or business owner, it is advised to have a privacy policy page on your website.

The issue is that the majority of newcomers don’t know how to draft a reliable privacy policy and then post it on their website.

Fortunately, there are methods for reducing the pressure associated with writing this significant legal document. Utilizing a thorough Privacy Policy generator can help you lower your chance of being penalized or sued while also proving to your users that you value their privacy.

What Information do Websites Gather

• Name and email address in comment forms
• Comment form cookie which remembers a user’s name or email address
• Name and email addresses submitted by user by using a contact form
• Name and email address submitted to sign up for the 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 that track users.

Reasons to Add Privacy Policy Pages to Your Website

There are privacy laws to safeguard the personal data of inhabitants (or citizens) of specific states, nations, and continents. You must provide a Privacy Policy with specified disclosures if you collect personal information from website visitors; failing to do so might result in fines starting at $2,500 per violation (meaning per website visitor).

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a law that grants European Union (EU) individuals authority over their personal data. Even if you are not from an EU country, this rule applies to all businesses (including WordPress sites).

You may market your website as reliable by outlining exactly what information you gather and how you utilize it. This might facilitate the development of a solid rapport with your audience. Additionally, it might set you apart from rivals who might not be as forthright.

What to Include in your Privacy Policy

Each privacy law that is applicable to your company must be disclosed in your privacy policy. This makes it challenging to specify precisely what you must offer because it might differ amongst websites. Some notable things to include are:-

• Information you collect about users visiting your website.
• Methods used to collect information, e.g. cookies and web beacons, sign up, registration, comments, contact forms, analytics technologies, etc.
• The effective date of your Privacy Policy
• Mention all third-party advertisers collecting user information on your website like Google Adsense.
• Links to the privacy policy of each advertising program you participate in.
• Methods to protect the personal information you collect
• Links to your policies, procedures, standards, and codes

• Your contact information so that users can reach out if they have questions.

How to Create a Privacy Policy Page

WordPress has an in-built Privacy Policy template that allows you to edit and customize them to your website. To create a Privacy Policy directly in WordPress and use this template;

• Navigate to Settings > Privacyin your dashboard.
• You can then select the page where you want to display your Privacy Policy or allow WordPress to create an entirely new Privacy Policy Page.

By default, the WordPress template provides the following sections:

• Who we are
• What personal data we collect and why we collect it
• Who we share your data with
• How long we retain your data
• What rights you have over your data
• Where we send your data
• Contact information
• Additional information

All these sections come with suggested texts that WordPress makes available for you to use. As mentioned earlier, you can customize each of these sections to make your Privacy Policy unique.

After you’ve made your Privacy Policy public, we suggest including a link to it in a visible place on your WordPress website, preferably, the footer.

Adding Privacy Policy Link to Your Footer

• First, create a new custom navigation menu, if you already have one skip this step. Navigate to Appearance > Menus page to create a new custom menu by clicking on the ‘Create a new menu’ link on the top.
• Enter the name of the menu. You can name it the Footer menu.
• Next, you need to select pages from the left column to add to your menu. Make sure to include the Privacy Policy page.
• After selecting them, simply click on the ‘Add to Menu’ button.
• You should see your chosen pages show up beneath the menu you just made. Menu items may now be moved up or down by clicking and dragging them.
• Don’t forget to click the “Save Menu” button to save your changes when you’re finished.
• Now go to Appearance > Widgets
• Click the ‘+’ button to add a ‘Navigation Menu’ widget block.
• If you want to add a title to this footer menu, you can do that at this point.
• Click on the drop-down menu and select the newly created “Footer menu”

It should show on your website once you click on Save. This may vary from one theme to another so check your theme documentation on how to set up the footer. You can also use website builders to create Footers (like Elementor Header and Footer plugin) if you built your website without a theme.

No matter if you own a small business, non-profit, are a freelancer, or write as a hobby, you can be compelled to post a Privacy Policy on your website that complies with various privacy regulations. It might be intimidating to draft such a crucial legal document. But with the correct tools, implementing a transparent, detailed Privacy Policy on your WordPress website shouldn’t be a problem.

Check out this article: How to Add Google Reviews to your WordPress Website.