If you own a website then having a privacy policy is critical to your business. Visitors want to know their information is protected. Here’s how a privacy policy can help you, your business and your website.
Protect
Users
If you have a new website and you’re just
trying to get started with selling online you can run into problems. Your
visitors have no way of knowing if your site is safe or not. They might not
want to buy from you if they don’t feel comfortable about your site. If you
have a privacy policy your visitor might want to buy from you because they feel
more comfortable dealing with you. Your privacy policy makes them feel at ease.
They can read it and see how you deal with information such as credit cards, and
their other personal data.
Using a privacy policy will let those new
users that haven’t visited your site before feel at ease and since you probably
have a lot of competition you can make more sales and keep customers coming
back to your site. The policy will also make users who have bought from you in
the past feel comfortable as well since they believe you’re looking out for
them and their data which is important to them.
Your
Website Policy
Make sure you spend quite a bit of time
planning out your policy so you cover everything you need to. Don’t just throw
up any od document you want to make sure it covers everything necessary. The
policy needs to be easy to understand so your customers don’t have questions or
concerns about anything in the document. Consider hiring a writer or someone
else who is good with words to write the policy for you so you don’t miss
anything. Make sure nothing is hidden the document that a user would question
because this isn’t a good practice and will lead to suspicion on behalf of your
customers which you definitely don’t want.
Sections
Introduction
In this section you need to tell your
visitors a little about your company and what your website can offer them as a
customer. Make sure this section is clear and that the reader can understand
it.
What You Collect
This is a detailed section on what types of
information is collected by your website. The users of your website need to be informed
of what you collect. Even if they know what is collected because they fill out
forms this should still be stated in this section. Make sure they know that
their IP address and other information is collected too.
How
the Information is Gathered
In this section the user needs to know how
you collect the information. Let them know if they need to fill out forms or if
it’s automatic. The more Information your user has the better off they will be
and thye will feel protected when using your website.
Method of Collection: This details the
methods you use to collect the information. Is it all automated? Do the forms
visitors fill in collect other information, such as the original referrer? All
of these questions will help you build a detailed description of how you
collect information.
Storage
In this section you can state how the
information is stored and how it is used. For example the data is probably
stored in a database so let them know about that. Your visitors want to know
that the data is stored safely so you need to make sure they know that you’re
doing this as no one wants their data stolen.
Contact
Allow your visitors to contact you if they
have any questions about your privacy policy. Be sure you include email
addresses as well as your physical location and telephone number.
It
Pays to have a Good Privacy Policy
Your customers want to feel protected when
visiting your site. In an age of hacking and stealing data your privacy policy
is critical to eliminating the fears your customer shave about using your
website safely and securely.