When it comes to running my business, I'd have to say that dealing with the legal aspect is probably one of my least favourite things about it. I understand how important it is, especially for small business owners but so much of the legal jargon goes over my head that it can be intimidating.

For many newbie business owners, they may not have the resources to pay expensive lawyer fees for things like client contracts, which is why it's such a relief that there are other options out there nowadays to legally protect your business.

I want to share a few legal resource options you could use to help run and protect your business.

Disclaimer: Before we continue though, I do want to make it clear that nothing I say should constitute legal advice and it is up to you to source the right legal advice for the specific requirements of your business and the regions / global territories you operate in. Chiltern Digital Ltd (Marie Evans) accepts no responsibility for any repercussions of not having the correct legal information on your website.

Now that that's out of the way, let's dive in!

Why do you need all of these documents?

Well again, you'll need to undertake your own research as I'm not legally qualified. The way that Ingrid at Her Legals who I've worked with for my own Terms & Conditions, Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy has explained it was as follows:

Your Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy is about the information you collect from people who visit your site. Whether it's cookies that are collected when they arrive or you take information from them such as email addresses for newsletters or addresses to send products, you need to advise them of what happens to their data and how you manage it.

If you don't have these then you are likely to get penalised by search engines and ad companies such as Google and Facebook, so it's definitely worth having for SEO and to optimise any paid ad performance, as well as making sure you are legally compliant and an overall good guy!

Terms and conditions are about protecting you and your site, so things like 'you can't use my photos or branding' or anything else that is part of your hard work. So again, it's worth doing.

Resources you can use

Privacy Terms - This website has a free policy generator which is handy when you are just starting your business but it's quite easy to accidentally end up paying for something so be careful!

Termly - Termly covers a lot of legal compliance a small business would need and offers a basic free plan. Their free privacy policy generator also comes in two versions: one for US websites and one for UK websites to help you keep your website GDPR compliant.

Ingrid at Her Legals - Ingrid is who I used for my Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions and Cookie Policy. At the time Ingrid had two options; firstly you can have her bespoke service or secondly, you can fill in a template and the terms are generated at a reduced cost. I think I paid approx £240 for the bespoke Privacy Policy (which includes Cookie Policy) and approx £80 for the Terms and Conditions template (I wanted to try both so I could recommend Ingrid to others). This was back in 2020 though so prices are likely to have increased and services may have changed slightly since then.

Have you already set up your legal compliance requirements? Feel free to message me to share your own experience with getting all your documents set up!