Having a well-written privacy policy on your Website is an important and necessary tool to help convert more of your visitors to qualified leads who are anxious to do business with you. Writing a good one however can be problematic for most busy sales professionals —until now. Here is how you can have your own custom privacy policy done in a snap using a very special free tool.

Don't make the mistake of underestimating the Web-lead conversion power of a well-written privacy policy. Not too long ago a major RE/MAX region asked me how they could generate more and higher quality leads from their regional Website. When asked, they admitted that their site did not have a formal privacy policy. At my suggestion they installed one and their lead volume and quality (i.e. veracity of submitted information) went up substantially.

The key to a good privacy policy is to have one that addresses the specific issues of what kinds of information your site gathers and what you (as the site owner) intend to do with it. Because of the unique nature of each Website, there is no such thing as a "catch-all" privacy policy. Fortunately however, there is a very cool online tool that will help you create your site's custom privacy policy for you with only a few clicks of your mouse.

Privacy Policy Generator

Thanks to the largess of the Direct Marketing Association, you can use their free Privacy Policy Generator to quickly and easily generate an HTML and/or Text version of a custom privacy policy that best represents your Website's operation. You only need to answer 15 questions (most are multiple choice) and when finished, one click of the submit button it will send you via e-mail your customized privacy policy. You are probably looking at 15 - 30 minutes maximum. Keep in mind however, that some of the questions may require the input from your Webmaster or hosting service. So be sure to review the questions with them first before actually completing the form.
NOTE: You will notice that questions 7 & 8 are (as of this writing) identical and this is probably an error on the DMA's part. In fact, it is suggested that you eliminate the sections pertaining to those questions altogether since they suggest that you will share the visitor's e-mail address unless they decide to "opt-out" (remember, this is the Direct Marketing Association...)  Also, some of these questions have an e-commerce slant (i.e. sales of products) therefore be sure to edit the final generated policy as necessary to best fit your site's behavior with respect to visitor information.

When you have the completed content of your site's custom privacy policy it is strongly suggested that your attorney review it before posting. When the final version is ready just have your Web designer format it with a look and feel that is consistent with the rest of your site. Also, be sure that a link to your privacy policy is prominently located on every page of your site.  Whatever you do, don't put a link up pointing to an incomplete or inaccurate privacy policy. That's a quick way to drive potential clients away from you. For example, one of my students had a link to her "privacy policy" on every page of her site. The only problem was that when clicked, it opened a page that simply said "Privacy Policy" and nothing more! Now that's reassuring to the Internet Empowered Consumer.

Take the time to do this now —it could end up being the most profitable 10 minutes you ever spent!