Privacy Policy Creation and Usability Tips

If you don’t have a star legal team to write your privacy policy, you can use the Privacy Policy Generator which will help you create a satisfactory privacy statement in minutes.

Once you have a privacy policy, make sure site visitors can find it. It’s a good idea to link to it from your footer menu, where most privacy policies are located. Don’t bury your privacy policy behind “Help,” “FAQ” or “Customer Service” – chances are it will never be found, and some people will not do business with you without reading your privacy policy.

Next, make sure you link to your privacy statement every time you ask for personal information, such as creating an account, making a purchase, entering a contest or signing up for emails.

Account Creation:

Email Signup Form:

You may also want to read this post: Registration Usability – Permission Email Dos and Don’ts.

As for the privacy policy itself, you can also boost its usability using FAQ-style bookmark links, which allow readers to scan the content topics and jump to what is of interest:

You can also boost readability by bolding headlines and sub-headlines and using short sentences and paragraphs. If you have trust seals and credibility indicators like the example above (Better Business Bureau, McAfee Secure etc.), now’s a good time to show them off.

Linda Bustos is an eCommerce Analyst for Elastic Path Software, a Java eCommerce software platform for online retailers. Linda blogs daily about Internet Marketing for online retail at the Get Elastic eCommerce Blog.