How to Quickly and Easily Make Your Website GDPR Compliant (and Why You Should Immediately)

What is the GDPR?

The GDPR is an EU regulation that protects the online privacy of all EU citizens. It governs how personal data is collected, used and processed when users visit and interact with a website. This regulation affects all websites, since they will likely receive visitors from the EU.

Here are some key features of the GDPR that affect businesses:

• All websites must explicitly disclose that they are collecting personal data.
• Businesses must inform individuals about why, how and where they store and process users’ data.
• Users have the right to request a portable copy of the data collected from them.
• Users have the right to have their data erased under certain circumstances.
• Businesses whose primary activities involve collecting personal data must appoint a data protection officer.
• Businesses must report serious data breaches within 72 hours.
• GDPR violators can be fined up to 20 million euros or 4 percent of their annual worldwide turnover.

The GDPR’s intent is to protect people against data breaches. Most WordPress sites or other sites collect information in different ways. If a site uses analytics, WordPress forms, opt-in forms or email marketing, it collects personal information.

Your biggest concern as a website owner is obtaining explicit consent from site visitors. According to the GDPR, you must get explicit consent from EU citizens to collect and process their personal information. You cannot share this data with your advertising and remarketing accounts without consent.

According to web development service Wix, the GDPR is all about respecting people’s personal data. “Businesses need to be clear about what customers’ data they are choosing to collect and how they aim to use it,” Wix representatives told business.com. “It’s not just about following the rules — it’s about building trust with your customers.”

How to make your website GDPR-compliant

Education on GDPR compliance is a valuable investment because GDPR-compliant businesses can build trust and avoid costly fines and downtime.

GDPR and other data protection regulations push site owners to prioritize user privacy from the start. “This means adding features like cookie consent pop-ups, and to present clear privacy policies right into your design,” Wix representatives said. “You want customers to feel in control of their data — make it easy for them to understand how you will use their personal information and how you give them the ability to manage their privacy choices.”

Take the following steps before you begin the process of making your website GDPR-compliant:

• Get expert legal help. “First and foremost, it is always wise to consult a legal expert to fully understand the specifics of your local laws,” Wix representatives advised. Consider consulting a business lawyer who is well versed in the GDPR. They can guide you on how to comply with the regulation.
• Review all data collection points on your website. “Map what personal data you’re collecting, and understand the purposes for its use,” Wix representatives told us. Make a list of the data collection points on your website. This includes your checkout page, registration page, IP addresses and analytics accounts. If you’re working on a membership site platform, you also store user information. It’s essential to cover all of these areas to obtain consent for data collection.

Next, abide by the following best practices.

Be transparent.

Collecting data is vital to business sustainability, but it shouldn’t be abused. Following the GDPR’s data minimization principle, every data collection point should inform the user about how the collected data will be used and stored.

To collect data, the user must be at least 16 years old. If you engage with minors, you must verify the user’s age unless you have parental consent. If the user is under 16, you must obtain a separate parental consent form before lawfully collecting their data.

Our sources at Wix noted that businesses should also ensure users have a simple, transparent way to exercise their privacy rights. 

Audit all data your company collects.

To ensure GDPR compliance, you must log and track all data collection processes. For the sake of data integrity, collect only high-quality, reliable data that’s necessary for your business. According to Wix, you should also be able to efficiently handle inbound data requests from users.

Create a record for each data collection point, and keep them together in one place. Maintaining detailed records with a data register can help you streamline the audit process or handle a data breach if you need to prove compliance.

To ensure compliance, create a data register where you document the following details for every data collection point:

• Source of data collection (e.g., website form, checkout page, or third-party app)
• Type of data collected (e.g., name, email, IP address)
• Purpose of data collection
• Consent status (whether the user provided explicit consent)
• Storage location and security measures
• Sensitive data storage (if applicable)
• Data retention period (how long you keep the data)
• Recipients of the data (e.g., third parties it’s shared with)

It’s also important to continuously monitor third-party risks. Each vendor you use should comply with GDPR guidelines so you don’t put your customers’ data at risk when you’re working with other companies.

Consider designating a data protection officer (DPO).

Although not every business requires a DPO, GDPR guidelines state that you must appoint one if your company meets any of the following conditions:

• You are a public authority that processes data.
• You systematically monitor collected data.
• You process a large volume of data.
• You collect profiling data (e.g., race, ethnicity, biometric, health, religion or political affiliation).

Maintain your privacy policy.

Wix representatives noted that websites should continually update their privacy policies to ensure all data collection practices are clearly explained. Any time the privacy policy is updated, you must notify all customers by providing the updated link to the policy and highlighting any changes. This practice helps maintain a transparent and ethical user experience.

When you’re updating your data privacy policy, it is highly recommended that you seek legal counsel who is experienced with GDPR compliance. You can also view a sample privacy policy on the GDPR website.

GDPR for WordPress users

WordPress’ core includes GDPR-compliant features. To ensure your WordPress site is GDPR-compliant, update to version 4.9.6 or higher, as newer versions include built-in privacy settings.

These features align with GDPR requirements, including the following:

• Explicit consent for comments
• Data export and erasure tools
• A built-in privacy policy generator

Explicit consent in WordPress comments

In older versions, WordPress automatically stored users’ names and details when they filled in comments. This allowed them to comment again without retyping their information.

Now, WordPress includes a checkbox that users must manually check to save their names and emails. If they opt in, their details will be remembered and they won’t need to retype them.

Data export and erase features

WordPress has added two options to the Tools menu in the dashboard: Export Personal Data and Erase Personal Data.

These features allow you to quickly export a user’s information into a .zip file or completely erase their data from your database upon request. These tools help you manage user data more efficiently and securely.

Policy generator

WordPress has a built-in privacy policy template that allows you to create a page that informs visitors about the data you collect and how you handle it.

You can find the policy generator by navigating to Settings > Privacy in your dashboard. If you already have a privacy policy page, you can set it as your default under Change Your Privacy Policy Page.

Alternatively, you can choose Create New Page, which generates a new page with prefilled content for disclosures and privacy information. The template includes helpful headings and suggestions, but you will need to customize the content for your specific policies.

With these features, WordPress makes it easy to take a step toward GDPR compliance.

Additional steps to make your site GDPR-compliant

It isn’t possible to cover everything needed to make your website fully GDPR-compliant. Legal advice is essential to ensure full compliance. However, here are some critical aspects of your website that you can manage to help align with GDPR requirements.

• Implement HTTPS. Encrypting traffic to your website using HTTPS is generally a good idea. Switching to HTTPS provides multiple benefits, including enhanced security and increased trust among site visitors.
• Use contact forms. Users need to know that your site collects their data when they use a contact form, just as it does with any other form on your site, such as a registration or opt-in form.
• Create a checkbox for consent. When users click Submit, they should confirm they accept your terms of service by selecting a checkbox. You must also add another box to allow users to opt in to receive additional marketing communications, as required by GDPR and email marketing regulations. This box must not be pre-checked; users must actively select it to give explicit consent. Fortunately, popular contact form plug-ins — like WPForms, Ninja Forms and Contact Form 7 — make it easy to add these checkboxes.
• Add a cookie notice. You must notify users that your website collects cookies. You can do this by creating an overlay with a cookie notification plug-in. Some plug-ins that help with this include Cookie Notice and Cookie Consent.
• Prepare a notification system for policy updates or data breaches. Have a system in place to inform users about policy updates and data breaches. You can use an email blast to notify users of policy changes or implement a GDPR compliance plug-in to generate automatic notifications.
• Implement analytics, tracking and remarketing data anonymization. This applies to any third-party service or plug-in that collects user data, including Google Analytics, remarketing services, Google Ads and e-commerce analytics. To ensure compliance, you must anonymize data before storage and processing. This process can be complex if you manually integrate Google Analytics into your site. However, you can simplify it by using a GDPR-compliant plug-in that automates data anonymization.

GDPR compliance benefits individuals and businesses

Although the GDPR may seem intimidating, it benefits everyone by preventing data breaches and protecting both individuals and businesses.

“Besides avoiding fines, being GDPR compliant can increase customer trust and loyalty,” Wix representatives explained. “It can also help you improve your data security, streamline your processes, and give you an edge over competitors who might not be as privacy-focused.”

GDPR ensures that people’s personal information is not misused, which encourages companies to be more vigilant in how they collect and manage data.

It also builds trust in businesses that comply with GDPR regulations. You can take several immediate steps to inform users about how you collect and use data. By following the suggestions here and engaging with your users, you’ll be able to implement GDPR requirements effectively.

Jeremy Bender contributed to this article.