Establishing trust and transparency with your website visitors and customers is essential for any online business. This approach fosters loyalty over time and enhances the overall user experience.
A well-designed terms of service agreement is crucial for building this trust, as it clearly outlines the expectations and responsibilities for both you and your visitors.
At CanadaCreate, we dedicated significant time to crafting our own terms of service agreement, thoroughly researching all the elements that contribute to its success.
In this article, we will guide you through the process of adding a terms of service agreement to your WordPress website, step by step.
What Is a Terms of Service Agreement, and Why Should You Add It to WordPress?
A terms of service (TOS) agreement is a collection of conditions that users must accept to use your website, submit a form, request a quote, join your email list, or purchase products from your WooCommerce store. It safeguards your intellectual property and enhances user experience by demonstrating that your site is reliable.
By incorporating a terms of service agreement into WordPress, you can help prevent spam, limit your liability, and ensure users agree to specific website policies.
Now, let’s walk you through the steps to require a terms of service agreement on your WordPress site.
How to Create a Terms of Service Agreement in WordPress
If you haven’t created a terms of service agreement yet, you’ll need to develop one and incorporate it into your WordPress site.
There are several methods to create a terms of service agreement. You can use an online generator, adapt text from another website, consult a lawyer, or utilize a TOS plugin to help generate one.
Important Note:We advise seeking guidance from a qualified attorney to draft your website’s terms of service. While the automatic terms of service generator plugin mentioned below can be useful, it may not ensure full compliance.
In this tutorial, we’ll be using the WP AutoTerms plugin to create standard terms of service, but feel free to choose the method that suits you best.
First, install and activate the plugin. For detailed instructions, refer to our comprehensive guide on installing a WordPress plugin.
Next, go toWP AutoTerms » Add Legal Pagesin your WordPress dashboard.
Then, click the ‘Create’ button in the ‘Terms and Conditions’ section.
After that, provide information about your business.
This includes your WordPress website URL, company name, location, and other relevant details.
It’s important to address the questions that will help you create the most suitable terms of service agreement for your website.
After completing the setup, click the ‘Create’ button.
This will take you to a page where you can review your terms of service agreement.
If you are happy with the agreement, click the ‘Publish’ button.
Next, copy the terms of service text to include in your WordPress form below.
Simply highlight the text, right-click, and select the ‘Copy’ option.
Integrate Your Terms of Service Agreement into WordPress Forms
Once your terms of service agreement is created, you can require users to accept it before they can perform certain actions on your site. In this example, we will add the TOS agreement to a WordPress form.
For this purpose, we recommend using the WPForms plugin. It is the leading WordPress form plugin available and is utilized by over 6 million websites.
You can easily create any type of WordPress form using the intuitive drag-and-drop builder, including online order forms, simple contact forms, donation forms, and more.
Many of our partner brands and we are currently using this plugin on our websites to manage customer inquiries, user registrations, and feedback, and we have all had excellent experiences. To find out more, check out our WPForms review.
Note:We will utilize the free version of the plugin to create a Terms of Service contact form. However, you can opt for the pro version, which offers additional features, form templates, and more.
The first step is to install and activate the WPForms plugin. For detailed instructions, refer to our beginner’s guide on installing a WordPress plugin.
After activating the plugin, navigate to the WPForms » Add New section in the WordPress admin sidebar to create a new form.
Start by selecting a form template. Simply hover over a template and click the ‘Use Template’ button.
For this tutorial, we will choose the ‘Terms of Service Contact Form’ template, as it includes a TOS checkbox.
This action will take you to the form editor screen.
The form is fully customizable. You can drag fields from the left-hand menu to your form on the right.
To modify individual form fields, just click on them.
This will open an options menu that allows you to customize each field.
Once you have completed customizing your form, click on the ‘Terms of Service’ form field.
This opens an options panel where you can modify the terms of service label, the checkbox description, and paste the terms of service text you copied earlier.
Ensure that the ‘Required’ toggle is activated.
Next, navigate to the ‘Advanced’ tab.
Here, you can toggle the ‘Hide Label’ option if you prefer to conceal the terms of service label.
Once you’ve tailored your WordPress terms and conditions form, you can adjust the settings.
Go to Settings » General. This is where you can modify the Form Name, Form Description, and Submit Button Text.
Additionally, it’s important to send a confirmation message to visitors after they submit the contact form on your website. This informs them that their request has been received.
To configure this, navigate to the Confirmations tab. Here, you can personalize the email subject line, sender name, sender email, and the email message.
We recommend using the WP Mail SMTP plugin for sending emails from WordPress, as it enhances deliverability by ensuring emails are sent through a reliable SMTP server instead of relying on the default PHP mail function.
For further details, refer to our comprehensive guide on setting up WP Mail SMTP with any hosting provider.
Once you are satisfied with the appearance of your form, click ‘Save’ to exit the form builder.
Next, add the form to your WordPress site by opening an existing page or creating a new one. Click the ‘Plus’ icon to add a block and select the ‘WPForms’ block.
Choose your form’s name from the dropdown menu.
This action will display a preview of your form in the page editor.
After that, click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button to make your form live on the site.
You can now visit your form page to see your terms of service agreement form in action.
Bonus: Adding a Digital Signature Option to WordPress Forms
In addition to requiring users to accept your Terms of Service, you may want to allow them to digitally sign your form.
This feature is ideal for applications, contracts, volunteer forms, and more.
With WPForms, creating a contract agreement form is straightforward. The signature field addon simplifies the process of incorporating digital signatures into your WordPress forms.
For further information, check out our guide on creating a contract agreement form with digital signatures in WordPress.
We trust that this article has provided you with valuable insights on how to implement a Terms of Service agreement in WordPress. Additionally, you might find our guide on restricting WordPress forms to logged-in users informative, as well as our recommendations for the best Mapbox plugins available for WordPress.
