For your blog to be in compliance with advertisers (and the FTC) there are a couple pages your site must have. These 2 must have pages are your privacy policy and the disclosure policy.
Privacy Policy
While this is a mandatory element for any site using Adsense (per terms and services of Google), it is also good policy for any site to let their readers know what the site policy is on gathering their information. The privacy policy is very easy to put together. In fact, there is a website where you can create a privacy policy and then just copy and paste it into your site.
Disclosure Statement
This one is relatively new, well the enforcement of it is relatively new. This is an FTC regulation. It basically means you need to be clear and transparent with your readers. You need to let them know if you’re getting free products to review (yes that does happen!!), or if you’re making a commission from affiliate links. While there was a lot of uproar just before this policy went into affect, it really is a good one (in my opinion). It makes being a legitimate blogger much easier. It allows your readers to make informed decisions ~ not only on your site, but all sites. It also helps shine light on the scam artists out there. The more and more people start seeing disclosure policies they’ll start noticing when they DON’T see them. I am quite certain the scammers have NOT gone back and put disclosure policies on their scam websites ~ so it will be easy to tell the difference between legitimate business people, and people trying to steal your money. At least that’s what I think.
So anyway. Creating a disclosure policy is just as simple as the privacy policy. You can create a disclosure policy here and then copy/paste it into your site. Some of the verbiage they use doesn’t seem to quite fit for some sites. It is a great place to start though, so use it as the base and add/edit anything you think you need.
At this point no one is really sure what level of disclosure will be necessary (whether you’ll need a disclosure next to every affiliate link) but the bare minimum to stay in compliance is definitely a site wide policy.
You also want to make sure your disclosure policy is easily seen ~ don’t hide it on a back page somewhere. I would add it to the navigation bar in your header, or in the pages section of your sidebar (if you have one) or in the footer of your site. Make sure people can see it.
About Page
This is a very important page on your blog. Most people use the about page as a place to tell people about themselves. I think this is probably NOT the best way to use this space. Your about page really should be about your site and what benefits the reader will get from being there.
So instead of telling your story on this page, I suggest you really think about your site and what you are offering. Think about what your readers will gain by becoming a regular reader of your site.Those are the things you want to include in your about page.
On this page you might also give people some instruction ~ how to best find the information they need or are looking for. Where to most easily access information. How to get updated information (joining rss feed/list) etc. Make it easy for your reader to have a good experience on your site.
While this page is about your site, you still need to connect with the reader. This is an excellent place to have a picture of yourself. Unless this is a business site it’s a good idea to have a casual picture of you in your real life. This is a great way to connect with people. If your site is about horses, why not put up a picture of you and your horse? This shows you are really interested in your topic.
There will be time to tell your story, so right now keep this page about your reader and their experience on your site.
Those are the three MUST have pages.
I’m going to encourage you to start one more page though.
Articles Page
This is something I’ve implemented relatively recently. It would have been much easier if I had started it from the beginning. 
The articles page is a place where you add your BEST content. You’re not adding every post you write, but just your best “pillar” content.
How you set your articles page is up to you. It’s pretty easy to add some headings and then put any articles related to that topic under it. All you have to do is create a link to the post on your blog.
I have found the articles page immensely helpful ~ because I have set it up to be an easy way to present information in chronological order. As much as I love blogs ~ when you’re trying to do things in order it can be tough because they publish the newest stuff on the top! My articles page allows me to go through an entire sequence of tutorials in the right order. I can also name them exactly what they are (instead of the catchy or kw related titles the actual blog post has).
It makes it really easy for me to send people to that page to find the information they are looking for, in the order they need it. The other benefit of an articles page is it will help keep people on your site. How long someone stays on your site and how many “pages” of your blog they read is known as the bounce rate. It’s not uncommon to have a very high bounce rate, where people come to your site, read the page they landed on and then click away. The articles page helps to keep them moving through your content. The more of your content they read, the more likely they are to come back to your site and become regular readers.
What if I only have a couple articles?
Go ahead and start your articles page anyway. Better to start now than to have to go back and sift through 300 posts to add to it. 
You can check out my articles page (and you can call it something else if you want) to see what I’m talking about. Another great example is Yaro Starak’s articles page. You can see he has incorporated his articles page in the sidebar. That’s totally custom, and I’m not saying you need custom, I’m talking about the layout of the posts and how he set that part up.
How do I do these pages?
You add pages, pretty much the same way you create posts. In your dashboard, instead of clicking add new under the post area you’ll need to click add new under that PAGES area. Once you’ve opened the page you’ll see the text editor just like in the posts section.
If you’re copy/pasting something make sure you click the little “html” tab and paste anything that has actual coding in it in there. This will ensure your coding works when you click back over to the visual editor.
Where will my pages show up?
This depends on your theme. If your theme has pages in the navigation bar they will show up across the top of your header (like the ones on this site). If your theme doesn’t have pages in the nav bar and they don’t show up anywhere else you’ll have to go into your widgets area and put the “pages” widget in the sidebar. This will make your pages show up in the sidebar. Where you want them to show up is up to you. It’s probably smart to have them above the fold (the top half of your site) so people can easily find them.
As time goes on you may find you have information/resources you want people to be able to easily find. You may find yourself creating additional pages to provide a quick and easy way for them to get to this information. That’s totally fine. Just keep in mind as you continue to create pages the more “stuff” you have on your site the harder it will be for people to find what you want them to see. Try to keep it simple and clean.
You may find it a good idea, once a year or so to go in and take a look at your site and see how you can clean it up. Everyone’s site looks so neat and clean in the beginning. As time goes on we find cool stuff we want to share, new affiliate programs we want to feature. Soon our sites have tons and tons of stuff which instead of making us MORE money actually has the opposite effect. The more people have to make decisions (what to click, what to look at, where to go) the less likely they will be to make any of those decision. (remember looking for themes? too many choices can lead to paralysis and that’s NOT what you want on your site.)
If you have any questions about creating or publishing your pages please ask in the comment section. This is the second task in this week’s challenge. If you’ve got your plugins done already when you get the pages up don’t forget to go back and add your link to say you finished this week’s blog challenge!
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These three pages are very essential for any blogger out there. The privacy policy is in almost all sites but then the disclosure one is what I have not seen on many. I think most people caused an uproar when this policy was made because they do not want their readers knowing so much. I also think that it is a very good policy. Awesome post.
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