Git and GitHub are essential to the success of many of today’s fastest growing software and digital product companies.

In this article we’ll give you a quick crash-course in what Git and GitHub are. We’ll also show you how they can help you grow your business.

Let’s git to it:

• What is Git?
• What is GitHub?
• Why use Git or GitHub?
  • Your Digital Product Without Git
  • Your Digital Product With Git
• How to use Git when selling digital products

What is Git?

Git is a version control system invented by Linus Torvalds and Junio C Hamano. Linus is also the main inventor/developer of Linux!

Side note: Linux is the open source operating system that runs 95%+ of all website servers (including ours) and millions of computers used by developers, tinkerers and builders all over the world. So Linus is a cool dude.

Git tracks every little change within a set of files.

Tracking changes helps teams collaborate on building digital products and software. It allows team members from all over the world to work together. Git it allows these teams not to write over each other’s changes and break stuff.

Here is a handy list of terms and definitions to help you understand the wide world of git and version control.

Git Terms and Definitions

Git Terms	Get Definitions
VCS	A version control system
Git	The version control system that can run within several operating systems, created in 2005
Subversion (SVN)	A separate, older version control system managed by the Apache Software Foundation, started in 2000
GitHub	A for-profit company that offers a git hosting service on the web. Other similar services include BitBucket and GitLab
Repository / Repo	A collection of files that gets set up and then the changes are tracked. Also called a code base. For example a WordPress plugin repo would have the PHP, Javascript, CSS, and HTML source code files that make up the plugin all being tracked.
Readme	A document you can include in a github repository, usually (readme.md) that explains what the repo is, or how to use the digital product within
MD / Markdown	A format for writing text with minimal code or markup characters used for making styled text files in a repo. For example; to italicize a word in markdown you would add underscores before and after it like this ‘_italic_’.
Branch	Making another copy of the digital product of software to try new things out (fixes or new functionality). You can later merge the branch back into the original/master branch with a pull request.
Commit	When you make a change and save it to a branch.
Fork	When you split off a copy of a digital product or software to make a complete new one. Think of it as a permanent branch cut off the tree to grow a new one. I know the tree analogy only goes so far.
Pull request	When someone makes a contribution (change, improvement) on a branch and requests it be pulled into the main branch of a repository. When this is done, someone has to make sure it doesn’t break anything on the master branch. If approved it becomes part of the main branch.
Command line	A text-only interface for running commands on your computer. Most of us use the GUI (see below). This is often called ‘Command Prompt’ on Windows or ‘Terminal’ on macOS.
GUI	Graphical user interface, the visual Windows or macOS interface most of use use when working in our operating system. Different from the command line or terminal where you only work with text.
API	Application Programming Interface, a standardized way for two computer programs/applications to ‘talk’ to one another

Command Line

Git is a command line tool. Command line is a way of working with your computer’s operating system without a graphical user interface (GUI). It’s not for the faint of heart or total newbie. You’ll have to do some reading to learn how to use it.

Click here to learn about git commands

When working with git on the command line, you have to type in little codes to do stuff. These codes are called git commands. You have to know the exact text to write, no typos.

Click here to learn how to install git with command line

If you don’t want to mess around with the command line, you’re in good company. There are lots of companies providing apps and services that make working with git easy. That’s where GitHub comes in.

What is GitHub?

GitHub is a company that provides a cloud-based git version control solution. By hosting collections of files (git repos) on a web server you can do tons of cool things.

• Collaborate with anyone (or even the public)
• Keep track of feature requests with issues, these provide a detailed history of the discussions and decisions that led to every change in the software
• Project management; track bugs, ideas, future improvements in an organized way

Git ≠ GitHub

Git is an open-source version control framework.

GitHub is a software company and SaaS (software as a service). It was acquired by Microsoft in 2018. It uses the git VCS framework as the backbone of their product.

GitHub is the largest git-based software solution, but there are many others that are powerful and popular in their own right. Here’s are of the most popular git-based online platforms/services:

• GitHub.com
• BitBucket.org
• GitLab.com

Each of these git hosting services have free and paid pricing plans.

Unless you have a reason not to, if you plan to work with git, you’ll want to do it on one of these hosting services. Then, you clone git repositories to your computer and keep your work in sync with the repositories stored on the internet. 

When working with a repo on your computer (called your ‘local’) you can use the command line. Or each of these hosting services has a desktop app you can use that has a GUI (graphical user interface).

Why use Git or GitHub?

You use git, or more likely one of the popular and easy-to-use online git-based platforms (GitHub, BitBucket, or GitLab) because they allow you to manage your digital product or software without losing your mind.

When developing a digital product, or software, it really helps to keep track of changes. And it helps to know when and why you made those changes. Otherwise, when something breaks, or you add a new feature, you have a mess on your hands.

You won’t know what was fixed, when it was fixed, why, or how!

Is Git Only for software?

No. Git is great for software development. Version control is so important, and such a time saver there. But you can use it for anything you want to track changes on. People use it to track changes on the content of books, or even for graphic design projects.

Your Digital Product Without Git

First, here’s what it looks like if you don’t use some sort of version control system.

Let’s pretend you’re developing a WordPress plugin. You are editing a file called ‘user-fucntions.php‘.

• What happens when you want to change stuff?
• What happens if you need to remember what/where/when you changed something?

It gets ugly really quick. Especially if you are working with a team. And even more so if that team is distributed (remote, all over the globe). Just look at some ‘solutions’ people still use or used in the past…

“Solution” Writing Comments

You can try to keep track of what you change, why, and when by leaving little comments in the code. All code formats have a way of leaving text in them that the computer/software ignores. These are referred to as comments.

This might work for one or two little changes. But it can get crazy really quick.

Look at all those comments! If you have thousands or tens of thousands of lines of code. It becomes a real pain to figure out what’s what. It can also make the files huge, and even load slower, making the software or website run slower or even buggy.

“Solution” Keep Copies Files

You can try to make copies of the file as you go.

Note / Pro Tip – If you do this with PHP files disaster could strike. The server might try to run duplicate commands from the ugly pile of junk PHP files you left on your server. At least rename the file extension to something other than ‘.PHP’ as demonstrated here. Trust me.

Imagine what happens when you start keeping old copies of files around for a project with dozens or hundreds of files. It will be a colossal mess. You’ll have more junk files than real active files.

Cowboy Coding

What I just described above is often referred to as cowboy coding. It means you are taking things into your own hands and quickly fixing a problem under the gun. That’s fine when it works. But usually it either results in a big mess or a temporary fix leading to an eventual big mess later.

You can see how relying on tons of comments or clogging your server or computer with old renamed copies of files will lead to a big mess. If you are doing this on any degree of a large scale, or working with others, it’s just a waste of time.

It will slow you down. It will lead to errors. It will hamper your ability to make good products for your customers.

DevOps

Instead of doing cowboy coding, smart entrepreneurs and digital product owners strive to build a smooth workflow. Another way to say that is to use smooth development operations (or DevOps). Devops is a newer term that describes the process of building digital products in an efficient workflow.

The goal is to make releasing improvements in functionality faster and smoother.

Your Digital Product With Git

Now, we’ll show you how powerful git is, in our examples below we’ll use a GitHub account.

On GitHub you can build your software and collaborate with people all over the world (distributed teams). You can even build in public! This is what open source software is, it’s software built in public.

Anyone can watch. Anyone can contribute. That leads to rapid innovation and improvement.

Want proof that it works? WordPress is an open source project. Thousands, if not tens of thousands of people have contributed to it. It now powers 43% of the internet!

Sample Repo

Easy Digital Downloads is built in public on GitHub. Check out our repo here.

EDD is a big complicated digital product. So for a more approachable example, let use this sample repo I just set up.

This example digital product for sale here is a simple vector graphic (SVG) file. It’s a blue circle. Pretend it’s a graphic someone would actually buy.

To follow along, check out the sample repo, or make your own.

To make your own, set up a free GitHub account and then on the top menu click + button and then New Repository.

Click here to check out our sample repo

Using the power of git, hosted on GitHub we can keep track of every little thing we’ve changed to the software over the entire life of the product. Here’s our little sample repo.

Look here how we changed the stroke width of the circle’s outline from 41.67 pixels to 20 pixels.

The Benefits of Git

Now, every change or improvement we ever make to this digital product will be tracked. We know what, when, how, why each change was made.

This digital product’s source code is being developed in public. Anyone can contribute. You can also make a GitHub repo private and only allow collaborators you want to work on it.

You can use GitHub issues to have discussions on all changes and possible changes. GitHub issues let you refer and link to code files, or individual commits to enable detailed communication.

This git workflow is way better and more efficient than cowboy coding. Imagine this when it scales to a larger project.

This beats adding tons of comments to individual code files. That just leads to a mess and future problems. This is better and less error-prone than having stacks of old copies of files laying around making everything messy or even posing a security risk.

Git and GitHub (or BitBucket or GitLab) are crucial to building successful digital products. Especially software.

Git allows good project management and simplified devops. You are able to:

• Increase efficiency of your workflow
• Work with distributed/remote teams
• Work at different times, in different time zones
• Provide transparency
• Build trust
• Avoid costly mistakes

How to Use Git When Selling Digital Products

If you want to sell software or digital products you should use WordPress and Easy Digital Downloads (EDD).

WordPress is the most popular and powerful website builder. It can grow and adapt to do anything you need it to.

EDD is the best way to sell digital products. It’s trusted by more than 50,000 businesses to do just that.

You can get started with EDD for free. The free-forever version of Easy Digital Downloads includes:

• Full control over pricing
• Shopping cart
• Flexible checkout options
• Discount codes
• Customer management (basic CRM)
• eCommerce reports
• Stripe and/or PayPal integration
• White label (full control over branding)

What are you waiting for

Connecting Your Digital Products to Git

EDD is free to use. However, to get the most out of EDD and Git you’ll want to purchase an All Access pass to get access to our Git Download Updater and Software Licensing extensions.

Install EDD, Software Licensing, and Git Download Updater

When EDD is installed on your site, you’ll have a new menu item on the left side of your WordPress dashboard called Downloads.

Next, install Software Licensing and Git Download Updater. Click here to learn how to install plugins once you have the All Access pass here.

Git Connection Settings

With those plugins installed we’ll show you what it looks like to connect your store to GitHub.

On your WordPress dashboard go to Downloads > Settings > Extensions > Git Download Updater.

You see a settings screen with instructions on how to link to GitHub.

Click the ‘Create an application’ link on the first bullet point under GitHub Updater.

Make sure you are logged in to your GitHub account. You’ll be taken to GitHub where you can register a new OAuth Application. That just means you are giving GitHub and EDD permission to talk to each other via an API.

It will look like this:

You’ll give the OAuth app a name and description, and then enter your website domain name (URL) in the Homepage URL and the Authorization Callback URL settings.

Be sure to click Register Application when you’re done on that side.

You’ll have the OAuth app (or permissions created for EDD and GitHub to hang out and talk together).

Copy the Client ID it gives you and paste that in the EDD Client ID settings. Do the same with the Client Secrets. You may have to create a new one by clicking ‘Generate a new client secret’ to make a new code.

After entering the Client ID and Client Secrets, back on the EDD settings page you’ll hit the Authorize With GitHub button.

A page will load where you grant authorization.

Then your EDD settings page will confirm the connection. When successful it will say; ‘Connected to GitHub’. Be sure to click Save Changes.

Now you are ready to sell your digital product powered by EDD, Software Licensing, and Git Download Updater.

Start Selling your Digital Product with Git Integration

Let’s pretend I’m selling software, like a WordPress plugin, on my website. Which, side-note, we do everyday. EDD runs the EDD website.

With the example below we have a WordPress site with EDD, Software Licensing, and Git Download Updater installed.

First, we set up the product (called a Download when using EDD). Click here for a quick guide on getting a product set up. We give the product a name and description.

We give it a price.

Next, we enable Software Licensing. Scroll down to the area called Licensing and check the box labeled ‘Check to enable license creation’. Set activation limit, version number and other basic settings. Click here for a guide on getting your product set up with software licensing.

Last, we link the product to our GitHub repository. Scroll to the section called Download Files. Check the box labeled ‘Fetch download from a git repository’.

Then, under File Downloads we select:

• The Git Repository, for this example it’s the sample repo we’ve been using called EDD Sample 1.
• We select Version Tag v1.0.0
• The File Name and Plugin Folder of the product the customer get is set by the GitHub repo
• Click the Fetch Now button and when it successfully connects it will say ‘ Fetched’

Now you can deploy new releases of your product with a GitHub tagged Release.

Using EDD + Git or GitHub allows you to be organized with your workflow. You’ll work faster and prevent errors. Your customers will get better digital products.

Conclusion

That’s git for now. We’re confident that using Git or GitHub to manage your digital products will help you run your business. That’s because better and faster collaboration results in improved products for your customers!

You’ll work faster. And customers will get better products faster.

Thanks for reading!

We have a lot of resources for digital creators like you. What do you want to learn about next?

• How to Easily Sell Software with WordPress
• How to Sell WordPress Themes
• How to Sell WordPress Plugins
• The Astonishing Benefits of Selling Digital Products

Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more resources about selling digital products and WordPress.

The post How to work with Git or GitHub for Digital Products first appeared on Easy Digital Downloads.

In this article we’ll give you an overview of the music industry and show you how to easily sell your audio files.

Here’s our track list. Take in the whole album or skip around to what sounds most interesting:

• The Music Industry in the Digital Age
• Pricing
• Distribution
• Audio File Formats
• How To Sell Music and Audio with WordPress

The Music Industry in the Digital Age

Like everything else, the internet has dramatically changed the music industry. 

The Worst of Times

Many complain that it’s harder than ever to ‘be discovered’ and to make ‘real’ money.

There is a lot of truth to this. The market is very crowded. It’s hard to be discovered and build a following when there are so many people doing music. 

Not too long ago, there was a lot of money to be made in selling albums on Compact Disc (CDs). The big streaming platforms (iTunes/Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, etc.) have pretty much eliminated CDs as a revenue generator. And those platforms are not known for paying high royalties.

The Best of Times

Change is constant. Technology never stands still. The internet has created many challenges for selling music. But it has created many opportunities as well. Perhaps more opportunities:

• Music distribution is something you have more control over.
  • Before, in the past you relied on ‘gatekeepers’ like A&R men at record companies, DJ’s at radio stations, and television producers. You had to pay out tons of money for posters, and advertising was expensive.
  • Now, you can use social media (especially YouTube, Instagram and TikTok) to be discovered and build a fan base.  You can create music videos and have them freely available 24 hours a day anywhere in the world! MTV couldn’t do that. Nothing is stopping you from being discovered and building a global audience. There are no gatekeepers.
  • There are more ways for potential fans to discover new music than ever before!
• CDs are not money makers anymore, but you can find larger audiences than ever with the big streaming services. Once that’s done, you can figure out a way to make more money other ways (like selling out larger music venues with concerts advertised inexpensively on social media).
• You also have more ways than ever to talk directly to your fans and customers. This was never possible without the internet.
• You can also sell all kinds of products online, more than you ever could before the internet.

Diversity of Products

There are so many different kinds of audio based digital products. People will pay for audio which entertains them, soothes them, informs them, inspires them, and helps them achieve business goals.

In the past, pretty much all you could do was create singles, EP’s or full albums.

Now, just imagine the unique products you can sell because of the internet:

• Background music for ads
• Music for YouTube, Instagram stories, TikTok and other social media
• Podcast intros
• Music for Podcasts
• Recorded lectures
• Musical samples
• Audiobooks
• Foreign language lessons
• Relaxing background noises
• Karaoke versions of popular songs
• Reusable sound effects
• There are many more…

Teaching Music

This unique ‘music product’ needs to be mentioned and emphasized all by itself.

If you know how to make music and audio, you likely know enough to teach it! Online courses are a great way to share your creativity and skills with the world. Plus it’s rewarding to train up the next generation.

Grab our Content Restriction extension (requires a Professional Pass) and record some lessons. Check out these two really cool EDD websites that do online music training:

• BassBuzz
• Classical Guitar Shed

If you’re interested in doing online lessons check out this article. For some sites we recommend EDD + Content Restriction. For others we recommend MemberPress.

• Learn more about selling courses/memberships

Pricing

Music and Audio pricing varies greatly across the internet. And there is a lot of music that is free.

Audio Products for Consumers

Spotify has a free plan. Someone can listen to their vast catalog of music from independent artists all the way to the world’s most famous pop stars. Many artists place their music on YouTube. Consumers can get a lot without ever paying a penny.

This can make it challenging to charge a good price for your products. Consumers are used to having options for free music.

If you have notoriety or a big following you can earn money selling individual music tracks on online music stores like Apple Music / iTunes, Spotify, or Amazon Music. Or you can make money selling audiobooks on Amazon’s Audible or Barnes & Noble’s Nook.

• Music – When sold as single digital downloads, most music tracks are sold for $1.29 on Apple Music (formerly iTunes) or Amazon Music. You get a small percentage of that depending on how you handle your licensing (directly or with a music distributor service like Tunecore that charges fees).
• Audiobooks – Audiobooks typically sell for $5-20 on Amazon, Audible, or Nook. Often the pricing is based on length. Many audiobook platforms offer a monthly subscription that is popular with customers.
• Podcasts – Most podcasts are distributed for free. Creators make money through advertising and other partnerships.

You only get a tiny percentage of the revenue described above, learn more about that in ‘The Platform Dilemma’ section.

Many artists are not able to earn significant revenue on these consumer platforms alone due to overwhelming competition and low payments per stream or per download.

Audio Products for Businesses

As is the case for most product types, businesses are more willing to pay and willing to pay more than consumers for products that meet their unique needs. 

There are many ways to make money when you sell music and audio for business use. Consider ways to make pieces of the products that other companies sell or provide to the consumer.

• Short audio tracks for background music in commercials
• Podcasts intro “bumper” tracks and background music
• Music for motion pictures, television, advertisements, or YouTube
• Background music for use on social media platforms (which can be set up to generate royalties automatically)
• Sound and music for tutorials, training, etc.
• Music for video games (a market now larger than motion pictures)
• Sound effects libraries for audio engineers, radio, video, video games or podcasts
• eLearning, lectures, interviews

Subscription or Recurring Revenue

Instead of selling one product at a time, consider developing a strategy for recurring or subscription revenue. With one-time sales you have to constantly create new products to increase revenue. With subscriptions, you can get paid automatically every month for access to your products.

Here are a few ideas:

• Site memberships – If your catalog is large and high quality, your customers may be happy paying you on a subscription basis to be able to login and download what they need, when they need it.
• Provide services – Try offering services which produce audio files. You already have the skills and equipment needed as an audio producer.
  • Record spoken translations of text or audio in other languages
  • Create audio versions of text like blog posts, some blogs provide their content written and spoken
  • Record eBooks, or course material
  • Produce musical accompaniments like drum tracks or cowbell solos
  • The possibilities are virtually endless!

For more tips on pricing, check out our post on pricing digital products. Also keep in mind that you can change your prices, and maybe even should change them on a regular basis.

Distribution

When selling your music or audio online you face a major dilemma. You could call it the platform dilemma. By ‘platform’ we mean other apps, websites, or marketplaces.

The Platform Dilemma

The platform dilemma is:

Should you sell on popular platforms or on your own website?

• Using platforms exposes you to a large audience, but they keep a large amount of your revenue
• Using your own website allows you to keep all of your revenue, but it’s hard to attract a large audience

Consider a business strategy that uses other platforms and your website to achieve your goals.

Using Platforms

The majority of popular artists are on the big platforms like Apple Music, Amazon Music, Spotify, and Soundcloud. These platforms can get you in front of a wide audience. With their playlist functionality, it’s easier than ever to be discovered. But they take a huge percentage of your revenue. How much? Usually half. Half of your money!

Some platforms have advantages over others. Bandcamp is a marketplace platform that is popular with many artists. They take, on average, 18% of your revenue to cover their expenses. 

In some cases you’re making far less than half. If you are on a record label they are taking a cut. Or if you use a distribution service, they take a cut too.

Less Than a Penny?

Most of the major streaming services pay less than a cent per play/stream. A fraction of a penny. Apple at least gives you a penny!

It’s difficult and time consuming to get your music on each platform. You have to work directly with each platform, or get a music distribution service (like Tunecore) to manage multiple platforms on your behalf (for a cut).

You can see why it’s very difficult to make much money on the streaming platforms.

Using Your Own Website

You can make more money selling music on your own website, in theory, but it’s hard to get traffic to your website.

There are many advantages to selling your music or audio directly to customers on your own website. You get to:

• Build and maintain a relationship with your fans/customers
• Have direct communication with customers
• Have complete control over pricing
• Keep all of your revenue (minus credit card fees)
• Develop and control your voice/brand/style
• Control the entire experience
• Expand and sell other products or ‘merch’ (CDs, Vinyl records, t-shirts, apparel)

Even if you are using other platforms, marketplaces, and social media to build an audience, it’s a good idea to have your own website.

Having your own website is a key element to building a successful business.

Streaming and Downloading

Music and audio on the web can be streamed or downloaded.

• Streaming is when you play the audio right off the internet in a web browser or app, you don’t keep a copy of it for yourself
• Downloading is when you download (usually after purchasing) and play the audio off your device’s local storage as often as you want

If you plan to stream your music and audio files, you’ll likely need to use one of the streaming platforms listed above. These platforms work well on all devices, and can work well whether the customer has a slow or fast connection to the internet.

If you want to stream or host downloads on your own website, you’ll need to make sure you have a powerful and fast web host. You will need to serve your audio files from a CDN (content delivery network).

• Check out our full guide on selecting a good web host
• Click here to learn more about audio players for WordPress
• Click here to learn about and choose a CDN.

Audio File Formats

Make sure you deliver the right file to the customer and the right file to the streaming platforms. There are many audio file formats. It can be very confusing.

The key thing to understand is that some audio formats are for mastering and some are for listening.

Mastering Audio Formats

Mastering formats contain high quality, often uncompressed audio. You use these to store the master copy of your file. Then you use the master copy to transcode or compress listening files that are suited for streaming or download.

Master format files are large, they use a lot of disk space. They take a long time to upload and download from the web. Master copy files are not good for customers to use for streaming or downloading.

Popular Mastering Audio Formats:

• WAV (Windows Waveform Audio)
• FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec)
• AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format)
• Apple Lossless

Many of the streaming platforms require that you upload a master format on their servers, and then they create their own listening format copies.

Master files can be used in music production, because they are not compressed. All of the sound data is kept. If you are working together with multiple artists and producers, you would share the working files in a mastering format.

MIDI Files

There is one audio mastering format that is for special use. It’s called MIDI which stands for ‘musical instrument digital interface’. 

These files are not audio files. They contain digital information about musical notes, tempo, structure and descriptions. These are used by music composers and songwriters during the creative process.

There are also physical and digital instruments that communicate with each other and output MIDI. There’s even a specialized MIDI computer port you’ll find on many keyboards, samplers, and other audio devices.

Songwriters, musicians, and composers may want to sell MIDI files to be used in music production.

Listening Audio Formats

Other audio file formats are designed for streaming and downloading. They are for the end user, the consumer, customer or listener.

These files are compressed. The file size is as small as possible for use on the internet. Some of the audio data is tossed out, only the information needed for end user to hear sound that is pretty good is kept.

Listening files cannot be used in the music production process because they are a low-quality (or lossy) copy. Each copy made after the first generation gets worse and worse.

Popular Listening Audio Formats:

• AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)
• HE-AAC (High Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding)
• MP3
• WMA (Windows Media Audio)
• Ogg/Vorbis

Transcoding Tools

When you want to compress a master file into a listening file, you need a software tool. Many audio production tools like GarageBand, Apple Logic, or Ableton offer built-in encoding and transcoding.

There are also software tools dedicated to transcoding:

• Adobe Media Encoder (requires an Adobe Creative Cloud Subscription)
• HandBrake (a popular free encoder)

Physical Formats

More and more people are listening to music on their phones, tablets and computers. But there is still a large market of audio enthusiasts who prefer for physical formats.  Don’t forget about Compact Discs (CDs) and Vinyl records.

There are many services online that produce large or small runs of CDs and vinyl. Here are two options:

• Disc Makers
• Bandcamp

How To Sell Music and Audio with WordPress

If you are a professional musician, band, or audio producer, you should have your own website and your own domain name. Having this ‘digital real estate’ is essential to establishing yourself as a serious professional. 

You never know when and why you might need your own website. Here are some important business functions that a website provides:

• A portal for direct communication with fans and customers, where you don’t have to play by anyone else’s rules or terms of use
• A professional email address (yourname@yourcompany.com)
• A platform to have a consistent brand/tone/voice to sell:
  • Music
  • Concert tickets
  • Merch
  • Physical albums
• A cohesive hub for your social media platforms

The Best Website Platform

The best way to build your own website is with WordPress. WordPress is powering 43% of the internet. It’s open source. That means it’s yours. Yours to use however you want, you own it. Imagine, the world’s most popular and powerful website tools is free for you to own.

WordPress has the world’s largest ecosystem of plugins, themes (templates), and services.  You can rest assured that it can expand to do anything you ever need it to. 

Want proof? Look to the stars. Some of the biggest acts in music use WordPress, including Beyoncé, Mick Jagger, Jay Z, Katy Perry, and Macklemore according to this cool article on the WordPress blog Torque. That list is a few years old, it’s surely bigger now.

All you need to get started with WordPress is a web host. The good ones will set up WordPress for you, or provide simple one-click installers. 

Click here for our guide on choosing a WordPress host.

Already have a WordPress site? Great! You can get a store setup with just a few clicks. Read on…

The Best Way to Sell on WordPress

The best way to sell your music and audio with WordPress is our Easy Digital Downloads plugin. 

The best way to sell your own music is on your own website. Remember, streaming platforms and online music stores take HUGE chunks of your revenue. 

Even if you use them as part of your strategy, you should build your own direct-to-customer channel. A place where you can direct people to support you by purchasing directly. Especially when it’s so easy.

It used to be hard to set up your own direct-to-consumer store. You had to know how to write code or hire a developer. But with Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) you can set up a full featured eCommerce store with no code.

It’s free to get started, use it free forever.

The free version of EDD gets you everything you need with just the quick installation of a plugin.

You’ll get:

• Protected product files and user verification
• Shopping cart
• Flexible checkout options
• Customer management (basic CRM)
• Stripe and/or PayPal integration
• eCommerce reports
• Discount codes

Don’t Forget Merch

EDD is purpose-built for selling digital products. But you can also use it to sell physical products.

Are you selling a few physical CDs, vinyl records, hats, or t-shirts? You don’t need a separate e-commerce solution.

If your focus is digital, but you sell a few physical goods, check out our Simple Shipping extension. This extension requires upgrading to a Professional Pass.

Simple shipping lets you:

• Collect shipping information
• Set international and domestic shipping rates and collect shipping fees at checkout
• Manage orders

With simple shipping you’ll have to manage shipping and fulfillment. If you’re really busy, you might want to check out service providers who handle it all: manufacturing, fulfillment, and shipping. 

These providers will cost you more per unit, but may be worth the investment. A few companies well suited for music and audio creatives are:

• Printful (hats and apparel)
• Disc Makers (CDs and Vinyl)
• Bandcamp (Vinyl) 

Click here to purchase an EDD Pass for advanced features like subscriptions, product bundles, content restriction, or simple shipping.

Conclusion

Rock-n-roll! You have learned how to sell your audio and music online. You’ve also learned about the challenges and opportunities in the music industry. 

We have a deep catalog of resources for entrepreneurs and digital creators like you! What do you want to learn about next?

•  Tips for Pricing Your Digital Products
•  The Astonishing Benefits of Selling Digital Products
•  The Complete List of Digital Products You Can Sell

Grab an EDD Pass for advanced features needed by growing businesses.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to learn more about WordPress and selling digital products.

The post How To Sell Music and Audio (+ Making Money Tips) first appeared on Easy Digital Downloads.

What is Easy Digital Downloads?

Easy Digital Downloads is the best WordPress plugin for selling digital products. It lets you set up a complete free digital product store without writing any code.

You’ll see it called EDD around the web by its legions of fans and users.

EDD is trusted by more than 50,000 online businesses. It’s the backbone of large multi-million dollar businesses down to profitable side hustles.

You can use the free version of EDD forever. And you can sell an unlimited number of products on your site.

What Features Does the Easy Digital Downloads Trial Offer?

The free version of EDD gives you everything you need to set up a fully functional digital products store. It’s a complete eCommerce platform. EDD’s unlimited free trial includes:

• Sell downloads for free
• Upload and sell an unlimited number of products
• Preventing visitors from accessing your product files without paying first
• Accepting online payments using Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, or Google Pay
• Managing customers with detailed records, contact information, and purchase histories
• Viewing eCommerce reports complete with earnings, refunds, sales, and more
• Offering potential customers discount codes that can be applied at checkout
• Sending automated purchase confirmation emails with your logo

In short, you can provide your site visitors with a complete professional shopping experience. What are you waiting for? Let’s get started.

How Do I Get Easy Digital Downloads Free Trial?

You need to have a WordPress.org website or WordPress.com Business or eCommerce website. Learn more in the frequently asked questions below if you do not have a WordPress website set up yet.

These are the steps we’ll do today to get your store set up:

• Install and activate EDD
• Add a product (download)
• Do a test purchase
• We also have an FAQ at the end of the article if you have more questions about WordPress or EDD

Step 1: Install and Activate Easy Digital Downloads

Enter your WordPress website domain/URL below. You’ll be taken to your WordPress dashboard to install EDD with one click. It’s free!

Just like that, you’ve installed an EDD store on your WordPress site!

That was easy. You’ll notice a new side-bar section called Downloads this is where you’ll manage all things EDD.

Step 2: Add a Product (Download)

Now, let’s add a product to your store. If you don’t have a real product ready yet, just find a JPEG or GIF. Or download our sample file.

On your WordPress dashboard, you need to hover over Downloads and click Add New. We’ll call your product a ‘Download’ from now on. That’s what they are called in EDD.

First you need to give the Download a name. Then add a description.

Next, you need to set a price. After that you can look under Download Files to upload your sample file. This is what the customer gets when they purchase.

Last, you need to look under Download Image and upload a preview file of the image. In our example, it could be a copy of the sample JPEG file.

That’s all you need to do to get a download set up and ready to sell! Go ahead and hit Publish.

Your Download is ready to view and sell on your site. Click on View Download on the top notification banner after.

You’ll see your new Download page at yourdomain.com/download/product-name.

Note: you can repeat step 3 for each product you have, if you have several products ready to sell.

Great work so far! You’ve got your first Download all ready to sell (or to make-believe sell).

The great thing about digital products is you don’t have to worry about inventory. You can sell an unlimited number of your products right away!

In the example above we are using the free WP Astra theme. Your page will look something like this, but may vary a bit depending on which WordPress theme you have.

Step 3: Do a Test Purchase

You’ll want to do some tests before you try selling your products to the public. This is a great way to learn. Going through the checkout process lets you experience your store like a customer.

First, go to Downloads » Settings » Payment Gateways.

1. First you need to select the Test Mode checkbox.
2. Then, select the Test Payment option in the Payment Gateways section below that.
3. Last, set the Default Gateway to Test Gateway.

Next, click on All Downloads on the left-side menu. Hover over the download you just created and click the View button. This will take you to the frontend page for your Download.

Click the Purchase button.

The item will be added to your cart. Next, you need to click the button again, which now says Checkout.

You will be taken to the checkout page. Since this is a test, you won’t have to enter any credit card info.

You need to enter your email address, name, and click Purchase to complete a test purchase.

You will get a purchase confirmation email after completing your make-believe purchase. The default email looks like this.

Visit our Documentation to learn more about customizing email notification settings.

Next Steps: Unlimited Free Trial of EDD

Great work, you set up an unlimited free trial of Easy Digital Downloads. Your website is now also a powerful store!

The next thing you need to do is select one or more payment methods. Which one should you choose? It depends, mostly, on where in the world you are located.

We recommend using Stripe, unless it’s not available in your country. Click here to get started with Stripe setup.

If Stripe is not available in your country we recommend using Paypal. See our other payment gateway extensions here.

Once you choose and configure a payment gateway you can go live to the public with your digital products store!

Not sure what to sell? Check out this article with the 12 most popular digital products you can sell for inspiration.

Want to get more out of your store? Purchase an Easy Digital Downloads Pass to get access to our extensions. Extensions add great features to your store. You can add things like email integration or subscriptions (also called recurring payments).

Stay up to date! Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more free WordPress resources.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I Need WordPress and Is that Free?

Yes. You need a WordPress.org website to use Easy Digital Downloads. EDD is a WordPress plugin.

And, yes, WordPress.org is free. However, you do need a hosting provider to launch a WordPress.org website. Here is a great guide for choosing WordPress hosting if you don’t have a host yet. You can get started with a great WordPress host for a few dollars a month.

EDD can be used on a WordPress.com website if you have a paid ‘Business’ or ‘eCommerce’ plan. Learn more about the differences between WordPress.org and WordPress.com websites in this helpful article.

How Does WordPress.org Make Money?

They don’t. WordPress is open source software. It is built by thousands of volunteers. These volunteers believe in the mission of WordPress to democratize publishing for everyone. Most of these volunteers also make money by helping people use WordPress as service providers or theme and plugin builders.

It’s working out great. WordPress now powers 42% of the internet. No other web platform, paid or free, has ever grown so large or helped so many people start businesses.

Why should I use Easy Digital Downloads Instead of Others?

EDD is easier to use and faster to set up than many eCommerce solutions. This is because other solutions are set up to sell physical products. For most of them, selling digital products is an afterthought.

With physical product stores you have to manage things like inventory, fulfillment, and shipping. If you are selling digital products, you don’t need to bother with these things. So why use a solution that has a lot of bulky features you don’t need?

EDD is well respected as a solution that is both easy to use for beginners and flexible enough to grow with any business as it’s needs change.

How Does Easy Digital Downloads Make Money?

EDD makes money by selling extensions. Extensions add functionality to the free ‘core’ of Easy Digital Downloads. EDD extensions solve specific problems for growing businesses. You can buy and use extensions if they meet a need. Or you can just use the free version.

Will EDD Work with Your Website Theme?

Yes. EDD works with any WordPress theme. It fits right in with your design. We also have a listing of free and premium themes that are optimized for EDD stores.

You don’t have to do any custom coding. Just jump right in with fully functional store pages and a beautiful shopping cart. Customers can browse your product catalog, add items to their cart, and checkout when they are ready. Or they can bypass the cart using ‘Buy Now’ buttons.

How Do I Customize My Store?

There are lots of ways. You can choose from many free and paid options.

Customize Your Site’s Appearance

We offer two free WordPress themes that integrate perfectly with EDD. They both allow you to control the look and feel of your site with a standard WordPress interface called The Customizer.

Check out our free Themedd or Vendd themes and third-party themes

You could also use one of many page builder plugins available. We recommend SeedProd. SeedProd is a powerful WordPress builder plugin. It’s easy to use. It also now offers the ability to build your entire website theme, without code, using an elegant drag-and-drop interface.

Click here to learn more and see SeedProd in action on our blog post “How to Create Your Own Beautiful WordPress Theme (Without Coding)”

Customize Your Site’s Functionality

We offer 100+ Extensions for EDD that add all sorts of functionality to your store. Need email marketing, subscriptions, Amazon S3 or Dropbox integration, or software licensing tools? We have all that and more.

Click here to learn about our Extensions

It’s very rare that our Extensions don’t cover everything you need. But, if you need something specialized or unique you could work with a web developer that specializes in EDD customization.

We’ve partnered with Codeable for projects like this. We trust them to build anything you can dream up.

Click here to learn more about Codeable

The post How to Get an Unlimited Free Trial of EDD (Easy Digital Downloads) first appeared on Easy Digital Downloads.

What are website policies?

Companies provide policies on their website to limit their liability, comply with applicable laws, and help their prospects and customers understand the rules for using their website.

A Privacy Policy provides specific disclosures required under privacy laws that apply to a business collecting personal information (e.g. names, email addresses, etc.). A Privacy Policy helps explain to website visitors the information you collect, why you collect it, and who you share it with (e.g. third-party email marketing tools, CRMs, etc.), and more. 

A Terms of Service, otherwise known as a Terms and Conditions or a Terms of Use statement, sets the rules to using websites. This statement provides information about shipping, cancelations, refunds, warranties, and more. A Terms of Service agreement is required for eCommerce websites to work with third-party credit card transaction companies. 

A website Disclaimer exists for website owners to openly disavow any statements on their website that could potentially be misinterpreted. Disclaimers are valuable if you sell health products on your website, provide health advice, participate in affiliate programs or provide information that could be interpreted as legal advice. Do you remember commercials for medical prescriptions (i.e. ‘Ask your doctor about ______’) where at the end they talk really fast and make a bunch of statements (e.g. ‘some patients experienced nausea, etc.’)? That is an example of a Disclaimer, which can be valuable (or even required) depending on what you offer online.

What website policies do I need for my digital goods store?

Now that we know the difference between a Privacy Policy, Terms of Use statement, and Disclaimer, we will now explain what policies are needed for websites selling digital goods.

General requirements

In general, every digital goods eCommerce website needs at minimum a Privacy Policy to comply with international privacy laws and a Terms of Service agreement to set the rules to use the website. 

Compliance with international privacy laws

The beauty of offering digital goods and services is the ability to provide them to anyone, regardless of location. The consequence of selling digital goods and services is that you may need to comply with privacy laws that protect your customers’ data. For example, suppose you offer goods or services to residents of the European Union. In that case, you have to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and provide specific disclosures within your Privacy Policy. If you have customers throughout the United States, you may have to comply with privacy laws in California (CalOPPA, CCPA), Nevada (Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 603A), and Delaware (DOPPA).

It is critical that website owners understand this: privacy laws are created by legislators wanting to protect their residents’ data and do not care about where your business is located. If you collect personal information from residents of specific states or countries, you may need to comply with their privacy laws, regardless of where you are located. Since eCommerce stores selling digital goods collect personal information, you must identify first which privacy law(s) they need to comply with and add the required disclosures within their website Privacy Policy.

Keep Privacy Policies up to date with new privacy laws

On top of needing to provide a Privacy Policy that includes disclosures required by multiple existing privacy laws, eCommerce website owners also need a strategy to keep their Privacy Policy up to date as laws get amended and new privacy laws go into effect. In the United States, for example, there are currently over two dozen privacy bills that have been proposed. If and when each of these bills passes, you may need to update your Privacy Policy with new disclosures required by these new privacy laws. At the end of this article, we share ways to develop a strategy to keep your Privacy Policy up to date.

Terms of Service agreements are required for eCommerce websites

To work with a PCI compliant credit card processing company, website owners need to usually first list a Terms of Service on their website that helps explain cancellations, refunds, and more. You can find this requirement listed within the Terms of Service of the credit card processing company that you plan on using for your store. 

What you sell matters, even if it is digital.

Additional disclosures may be required (or recommended) if you sell certain digital products or services. Below, you will find common digital products for sale and things you should take into consideration with regard to your website policies.

Selling Audio Clips

If you sell audio clips, you will want to display a Privacy Policy and Terms of Service providing the general requirements listed above. You will also want to ensure that you display a DMCA notice within your Terms of Service agreement, which helps users know how to contact you if they find people infringing on your intellectual property (or vice versa). Your audio clips are valuable, and it is important that people do not use them without paying you. Offer a Terms of Service letting users know how they can (and can NOT) use your audio clips when purchasing from your website.

Selling Courses

If you sell courses, you will want to display a Privacy Policy and Terms of Service providing the general requirements listed above. 

Wouldn’t it be unfortunate to find a customer that purchases a course and then shares your hard work for free online for anyone to take? This could have severe negative financial impacts on your business if your would-have-been customers access your courses for free. You will want to ensure that you display a DMCA notice within your Terms of Service agreement, which helps users know how to contact you if they find people infringing on your intellectual property (or vice versa). Your courses are valuable, and it is important that people do not us ethem without paying you. Offer a Terms of Service letting users know how they can (and can NOT) use your courses when purchasing from your website.

Also, depending on the type of course you are selling, you may want to add a Disclaimer to your website, further limiting your liability as a business owner. Courses that could be seen as providing health advice, fitness tips or legal advice, for example, should have a Disclaimer disavowing anything that could be potentially misinterpreted by the customer.

Selling Desktop Software

If you sell desktop software, you will want to display a Privacy Policy and Terms of Service providing the general requirements listed above. 

Oftentimes, desktop software will send data to its creator to help them understand how the software is used. This allows the creator to develop additional features and functionalities that its customers may want. This type of data can be defined as personal information and you will want to make sure to disclose this within your Privacy Policy.

Concerned about people purchasing your software and then offering it for free to other parties?  Be sure to add a DMCA notice to your website Terms of Service. A DMCA notice will help users understand how to contact you if they find someone infringing on your intellectual property.

Lastly, you may want to consider offering an End User License Agreement which explains to users the rules of using the software and includes essential information about licensing, such as whether a user can make a copy of the software and give that copy to someone else. This is different from a website Terms of Service, which explains the rules to use the website.

Selling Documents

If you are selling documents, you will want to display a Privacy Policy and Terms of Service providing the general requirements listed above. 

Depending on the documents you provide, you may want to provide a DMCA notice, letting users know how to contact you if they find someone infringing on your intellectual property (i.e. sharing your documents publicly for free without having to pay you). 

If documents are purchased, filled out and then submitted back to you for any reason, you may be required to make additional disclosures within your Privacy Policy with regard to any additional personal information your website is collecting. 

Lastly, a Disclaimer may be required if you provide documents that could be interpreted as providing legal advice, health advice, or fitness tips.  

Selling Ebooks

If you are selling eBooks, you will want to display a Privacy Policy and Terms of Service providing the general requirements listed above. 

Selling eBooks keeps costs down for customers and provides instant access to your work. Writing a book takes a lot of time and energy, and it would not be good to find out a customer is offering your eBook for free to anyone interested. This can have a negative impact on your business financials. That is why having a DMCA notice within your Terms of Service can be beneficial for your business. A DMCA notice states to users how to contact you if they found someone that is stealing your intellectual property. 

Depending on the type of eBook you offer, you may want to consider adding a Disclaimer to your website. A Disclaimer is valuable if you offer anything within your eBook that could be seen as providing health advice, fitness tips or legal advice. By providing a proper Disclaimer, you can help further limit your liability with disclosures that help alleviate you from being responsible for people misinterpreting your work.

Selling Photographs or Videos

If you are selling photographs or videos, you will want to display a Privacy Policy and Terms of Service providing the general requirements listed above. 

Photography and videography can capture moments in time that can be cherished by a huge audience.  With that being said, photography and videography is often subject to copyright infringements as consumers can think that any image available online is fair game to use and share as they wish. If you sell photographs online, be sure to provide a DMCA notice within your Terms of Service, helping explain to users how they can contact you if they have found someone stealing your photos and using it as their own.

In addition, your Terms of Service should provide a copyright notice, ranging from the year you initially launched your website to this current year. This can help relay the message to your prospects and customers that everything within your website is copyrighted from the date it was posted, further protecting your photographs and videos.

Selling Plugins and WordPress Themes

Suppose you are selling plugins and/or themes. In that case, you will want to display a Privacy Policy and Terms of Service providing the general requirements listed above. 

When installed and activated, plugins and themes will often send data to its developer with regard to how users are utilizing its tools and features. This type of data may be defined as personal information under numerous privacy laws and may require additional disclosures to be made within the website Privacy Policy. 

You will also want to display a DMCA notice that allows users to contact you if they believe someone is infringing on your intellectual property. For example, offering your paid plugin for free or misusing your plugin or theme.

An End User License Agreement should also be provided to explain to users their rights when using your plugin/theme software as well as helping remove your liability when customers use your plugin. There are many widely recognized license agreements (GPL, MIT, PLR, creative commons, etc) that you can also use to protect your business. WordPress, for example, uses the GPL license, which is also common for WordPress plugin and theme authors. Regardless of which type of agreement you choose, failing to include a EULA in your software could cause people to misuse your product, improperly share it with others without you being compensated or possibly even being sued by a user for something outside of your control.

Selling Services (including web-based services)

If you are selling services digitally, you will want to display a Privacy Policy and Terms of Service providing the general requirements listed above. 

Depending on the type of services you provide, you may need to provide additional disclosures within your Privacy Policy with regard to any additional pieces of personal information your website collects after a customer makes a purchase. Your Privacy Policy can also disclose other types of personal information you collect while performing the actual services, such as login credentials, customer or subscriber information, and more. 

If you are selling a subscription based service, you will want to make certain disclosures within your Terms of Service that helps explain to users when they will be charged, if you offer free trial(s), and any other additional details that help prospective buyers understand how your subscription works.

Potential consequences of having non-compliant website policies

It’s important to step back and ask yourself, “Why even bother with all this policy stuff?  We discussed an ever growing number of privacy laws being introduced on a per country, state or continent level.  This is due to more and more people demanding their governments to provide them with privacy rights. Some of these newly created privacy laws have stiff fines, while proposed privacy bills want to provide consumers with the ability to sue businesses for privacy non-compliance. 

Below, we will talk about the three major reasons why you should take website policies seriously.

Fines, lawsuits

We all hear about big companies getting fined by governing bodies or class action lawsuits for privacy non-compliance.  “Facebook sued $650 million for privacy non-compliance”. “Google sued $2.5 billion for violated children’s privacy rights”. 

When the news covers these big stories, it almost feels like small businesses can’t get in any real trouble for privacy violations. This is, however, an incorrect assumption. When looking at GDPR Enforcement Tracker, for example, you will see countless small businesses that have been fined for GDPR non-compliance. And the number has been steadily increasing over time. 

Fines for failure to comply with privacy laws range from $2,500 per violation to €20,000,000 or more in total. In this case, “per violation” means per website visitor whose privacy rights you infringed upon. For example, if you have 100 website visitors from California per month and do not have a compliant Privacy Policy, the fine would be calculated as $2,500 multiplied by 100, which can easily add up to a large fine. 

On top of that, Canada has proposed an update to its privacy law, PIPEDA, that will enable its citizens to sue businesses for non-compliance. We also see multiple privacy bills in the United States that, if passed, will allow its citizens to sue businesses, regardless of the business’s size or location, for collecting as little as an email address on a contact form without a Privacy Policy providing disclosures required by that respective privacy law. 

In other words: the number of privacy non-compliance fines and lawsuits are increasing and may even start accelerating if more privacy bills continue to be proposed and passed. Privacy compliance is becoming a big deal.

Customer confusion 

There is not a single salesperson in this world that thinks that slowing down a sales process is a good idea.  Not a single one.  In the sales process, you want to keep moving the conversation along to get a customer to make a decision on if they want to make a purchase.  

And if a customer doesn’t understand your cancelation or refund policy, your warranties, or what you do with information after you collect it, then they will go to your website policies for answers.  And if that customer can’t find the information they are seeking, they may go to the search engines to find an alternative company. 

Website policies give your prospective customers the ability to identify exactly what to expect when making a purchase (or when submitting their personal data) through your website. This keeps the process moving, allowing these prospects to get to their purchasing decision faster (something we can all appreciate).

Lost business

According to this study performed by Axios, 93% of Americans said they would switch to a company that prioritizes data privacy. In addition, 91% of Americans said they would prefer to buy from companies that always guarantee them access to their data.

Losing business simply because customers may be uncomfortable with your privacy practices is an emerging trend we are seeing and is demonstrated by this recent study statistic listed above. Displaying comprehensive policies is your chance to show to your customers that you care about their privacy and you want them to have a transparent experience whenever making a purchase on your website. Simply put, providing website policies is the right thing to do. 

How can I get comprehensive website policies?

Setting up comprehensive policies for your prospects and customers can help you comply with applicable laws as well as limit your liability as a business owner. But it is important to understand that not all policies are created equal. Below, we will discuss ways to obtain comprehensive website policies while avoiding riskier (non-compliant) methods.

Can I copy/paste policies from a competitor?

No. Copying and pasting policies from another website is copyright infringement. On top of that, when you copy a policy from your competitor, you have no idea if they are complying with all applicable privacy laws and have provided all disclosures to help limit your liability. In addition, your competitors may not need to comply with all of the privacy laws that you need to comply with, meaning that you could still end up being fined or sued. 

Last, but not least, when you copy website policies from a competitor, you still haven’t answered the question of how you will stay up to date when new privacy laws pass that require new disclosures within your Privacy Policy.  

Can I use a free template online? 

We are unaware of a single website policies template that is compliant with all privacy laws.  Remember, to generate a comprehensive Privacy Policy for your business, you first need to identify what privacy laws actually apply to you. Only after you define the privacy laws that apply to you can you identify the required disclosures. Searching for a free template online answers the question ‘how do I get website policies?’, but does not answer the question ‘how to I avoid privacy non-compliance and its associated penalties?’.

Even if you were to find templates for your website policies that were comprehensive and somehow aligned with all privacy laws you needed to comply with, it still does not answer the question of how you will keep your policies up to date when privacy laws change or when new ones go into effect.  

Option #1: Privacy and International Contracts Attorneys

The best option to get comprehensive website policies is to work with a privacy attorney for your Privacy Policy, and an international contracts attorney for your Terms of Service.  

For privacy attorneys, try visiting the IAPP.org website and contacting some of their attorney members to find one that is a good fit for you. Make sure they discuss pricing not only for drafting your Privacy Policy but ask them to explain their processes and associated fees for monitoring privacy laws and keeping your website Privacy Policy up to date.

For international contracts attorneys, be sure to ask how they manage consumer privacy rights not only in their state or country but also internationally.  Consumers have different levels of protections, so you’ll want to make sure you are abiding to those respective laws as you sell your digital goods or services online.

With all this being said, there are many small businesses that do not have the funds to pay for privacy attorneys and international contracts attorneys to keep their website policies up to date.  As an alternative, many small businesses are looking towards online tools that can assist in the website policy generation process. We talk about this in the next section.

Option #2: Website Policies Generators

If hiring an attorney to draft your policies and keep them up to date is out of your budget, you may want to consider selecting a trusted website policy generator tool to assist you in this. 

The best website policy generators are ones that help you identify what privacy and consumer right laws may apply to your business first. Only then should the tool help you generate your policies through a questionnaire that is specific to those applicable laws. When looking for a privacy policy generator, you should consider who co-founded the companies as well. Is there a privacy and international contracts attorney that helped create the generator and keep it up to date over time? Also, be sure to select a generator that discusses how they monitor existing and proposed privacy laws and if they offer an automatic updates type feature. Questions like this will help you determine a trusted website policy generator for your business.

The con to using a website policies generator is that it is simply a tool, not a legal service provider. Many small business owners still choose to go the generator route, and simply ensure that the generator itself is built with comprehensiveness in mind and is run by people with legal backgrounds.

The pro to a website policies generator is the cost savings, which are a fraction of the cost of retaining a privacy and contracts attorney to constantly keep your policies up to date.  Termageddon, for example, is a website policies generator that costs $99/year with no hidden fees and was co-founded by a privacy and contracts attorney who’s even helped legislators write privacy laws on behalf of the American Bar Association. 

Conclusion

When selling digital goods or services, you need to provide website policies to comply with respective international privacy laws, set the rules to using your website, and limit your liability as a business owner. You also need to make sure to have a strategy to keep your policies up to date when the laws change (or new ones get introduced) and when your business practices change.  

Website policies may not be the most exciting part when launching and managing an eCommerce store, but they demonstrate to your prospects and customers that you care about their data and want to ensure they have as smooth of a purchasing process as possible. Contact an attorney or use a privacy policy generator like Termageddon to create comprehensive policies for your website; your prospective clients will appreciate it!

The post Selling digital goods and services: How website policies can help you comply with laws and limit your liability. first appeared on Easy Digital Downloads.