One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of breaking the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering serious financial loss, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your website fully compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules constantly change, it’s important that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if your web presence is an essential component of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your web apps, and you won’t be allowed into a range of advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If your online business is not in compliance, you could also end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your web presence is not compliant, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- The importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or endorsing in your website, and
- There are inexpensive plugins for WordPress site owners that can help your business become more compliant, such as the solution that we discuss in this article.
If you suspect that your website or blog falls short in terms of compliance, there is a simple WordPress plugin that you may be very interested in using.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin For WordPress is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your online business …
For more details go here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website legally compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar installs like any regular WP plugin. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easy To Edit Templates
Easily modify the default legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated plugin support team to assist you.
Additional benefits of this plugin include:
- Customized Legal Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a full library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the legal page templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Use On All WordPress Sites: If your website or blog runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any pages that are not necessary.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many great features to site owners. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Ready to use in minutes.
- Display Attractive Icons – Display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be placed anywhere in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Content – If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – 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 displays an attractive bar notifying your users and covering you from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – The plugin can record and store the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that automatically populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Using Compliance Bar
Once the Compliance Bar plugin is installed, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured is added to your WordPress backend.
Let’s briefly review these pages …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where you can enter your business information into entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Business Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile fields in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen contains all of the compliance pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of template pages made available by the plugin last time we checked their website:
- 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 site can be easily done. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button on the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
Icons can be changed. You can purchase an additional set of icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can easily customize and delete the legal disclaimer templates from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, selecting which pages should be included 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 source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create a number of Compliance Bars to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses in other areas of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using particular theme frameworks (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” 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 compliance pages through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to display your compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), you can display popups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your site …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and even record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Section: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law …
Compliance Bar lets you manage the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” tab …
(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” section, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
Feedback From Customers
Below are a couple of the testimonials that plugin users have written about the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”I got a chance to review the Compliance Bar plugin…WOW!! I have to say that its definitely one of the most NECESSARY, yet easiest to use plugin’s to hit the scene in a while. Very Solid Product. Great job Anton & team!” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Plugin Tips
Here are some extra ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your website includes content that is considered inappropriate for persons below a certain age, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated support team to help users if they experience any issues. Plugin users also have access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% refund guarantee. If your edition of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of the cost of purchase.
Product License Cost
- Single – Install the plugin on a single domain that you own. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on twenty-five domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License – Install the plugin on all domains that you own. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost to purchase this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price shown above was current at the time this article was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the software author when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing information here: Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. 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 a demo video of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Our Recommendation
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites and blogs. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website. 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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