One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring significant financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your site compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital business realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains legally compliant, especially if your online presence is an essential part of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed into a number of leading advertising and merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
At the very least, if your website is not compliant, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws and regulations that govern your business,
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using online, and
- There are solutions that can help your business become compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss in this article.
If you suspect that your website or blog is lacking in terms of compliance, below we discuss a simple plugin for WordPress-powered websites and blogs that you should know more about.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a simple and easy-to-install plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs that includes over twenty customizable legal templates for your website …
Go here to learn more about the plugin: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your website instantly compliant:
Really Easy To Install
Compliance Bar is quite easy to install. Simply upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WP admin user area and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Templates
Easily edit the prebuilt compliance page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated support team to assist you.
Some additional benefits of this plugin include:
- Customized Compliance Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a complete library of training videos is provided.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the built-in legal page templates provided in Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Use For Any Website Purpose: If your website is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the pages you want to include in your site and leave out any unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar provides a number of features to WordPress users. Here are just some:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Content – If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies users and covers you from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes to populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the pop-ups).
- Works On Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
Once the plugin is installed, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured is added to your WordPress backend.
Let’s briefly review these settings …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where you can enter your information into input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” “Location Details,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to populate and display the information into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been entered into the user profile fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
When we last checked the plugin website, there were over 22 compliance templates available to WordPress users:
- About Us
- AdSense Disclaimer
- Affiliate Agreements
- Affiliate Disclosure Statement
- Amazon Affiliate Disclaimer
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Contact Us
- Copyright/DCMA Notice
- Disclaimer
- Double Dart Cookies
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- FTC Statement
- Legal Disclaimer
- Linking Policy
- Medical Disclaimer
- Privacy Policy
- Returns/Refund Policy
- Support
- Terms
- Terms & Conditions
- Testimonial Disclosure
- XXX Disclosure
Creating compliance pages for your blog or website is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” on the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
Icons are customizable. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your site’s design …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can customize and delete your compliance page templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin will notify you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, specifying which pages to include an icon for in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your home page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and more …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create unlimited Compliance Bars to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover different uses in different areas of your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using particular WordPress theme frameworks (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile device screens, there is a limit to the number of page icons you can display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have configured your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your legal using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance bar to display …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), you can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses in different sections of your site …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and capture the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
The plugin lets you manage the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” screen …
(EU Cookies Section: Manage Settings – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar has a non-intrusive way of notifying your visitors and covering you from non-compliance.
Page Templates
The “Page Templates” area, lists all of your legal pages and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
Feedback From Users
Below are a few of the testimonials that plugin users have submitted for Compliance Bar:
”One of the most annoying parts about building out a site is to make sure it complies with the law. I always leave this part to the end because its painfully dry and boring and frankly I always just wished their was an easier way. Then I came across Compliance Bar and its literally the most versitile and brilliant plugin I have ever used. All my pages meet FTC requirements now and all I had to do was press a button! Anton and Jon..you guys friggen rock — 1000% highly recommend this!!” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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”I wanted to reach out & say Compliance Bar is a truly amazing product for keeping my online marketing efforts on the right side of the internet laws. Not only does it look fantastic on my sites, it is also intuitive and robustly powerful. It is packed full of features to allow me the flexibility to control exactly what my visitors need to see and know” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Plugin Tips
Below are a few useful ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If you have content for adults only on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated support team to assist users. You also have access to an entire set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund twice the amount of your cost of purchasing.
Plugin Price
- Single User Licensing – Can be installed on one of your own domains. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on 25 domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License Edition – Install the plugin on multiple of your own sites. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Pricing details of Compliance Bar Plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current pricing at the time this review was published. This may not be the actual pricing set by the product seller when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing here: Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how-to” videos showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Our Recommendation
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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