Why a privacy policy matters for your business website
The privacy policy on a website helps to improve transparency between your website visitors and your business.
It’s a page on a website where the business will disclose the types of information that is collected from its website visitors, as well as how that information is used and kept safe.
Privacy policies can help build trust between your website visitors and your business. They are typically located in a website footer or sub-footer.
Here are some well-done privacy policy examples:
Impact on Ad performance / SEO
There is speculation that privacy policies can affect advertising performance. Google does crawl websites looking for a privacy policy, among a host of other criteria.
- http://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2404197?hl=en
- http://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2549063?hl=en
- http://yoast.com/ask-yoast-privacy-page/
- http://www.woorank.com/en/blog/privacy-policy-seo-impact
Items you may want to disclose on your privacy policy (if applicable):
- Google Analytics
- Google Ads
- Facebook/Instagram Ads
- Any user-entered form data
- How information is stored
- How information is used
- Business information
- Last updated date
How to get a privacy policy created?
As a small business, it can be expensive to engage a lawyer to create or review a privacy policy. There are lots of resources online to refer to if you’d like to write one yourself.
We do not offer privacy policies as a service at Navigator. But here are some helpful links to get started:
- Ten tips for a better online privacy policy and improved privacy practice transparency (Canada)
- How to write a privacy policy (Canada)
- Privacy Policy for Canada
Some businesses use a free privacy policy generator like:
http://www.freeprivacypolicy.com
This can be a helpful place to start, but we recommend having a lawyer review your privacy policy before publishing it on your website.
Questions?
Don’t hesitate to reach out. We can assist in adding or publishing an updated privacy policy on your website. We can also assist in identifying any 3rd-parties used on your website that should be disclosed on your privacy policy.
