One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your website or blog must comply with many laws, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring serious financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your site legally compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
As the cybersphere continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules are constantly changing, it’s important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if your online presence is an integral aspect of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social networks could suspend your web apps, and you will not be accepted into a number of leading advertising or merchant networks.
If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, without making it very clear to your visitors that your site complies with all legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to be irrepairably diminished.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with compulsory federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- The importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or using online, and
- There are solutions for WordPress users that can help your site become more compliant, such as the solution that we discuss below.
If you suspect that your website falls short in areas of compliance, we discuss below a simple plugin for WordPress users you may be very interested in knowing more about.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-install and simple-to-use WordPress plugin with over 20 customizable compliance page templates for your web presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website or blog compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Configure. Be Up And Running In Very Little Time.
Compliance Bar is really easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP administrator area and activate.
Easy To Edit Templates
Easily make changes to the prebuilt legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress visual content editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated plugin support to assist you if you experience any difficulties.
Additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Pages: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a complete library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the default templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used On All WordPress Sites: If your site is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any that you don’t require.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many great features to WP users. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Content – If your site contains content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying your users and covering your website from non-compliance.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records and stores the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor web browsers.
Features – Details
After installing and activating the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured gets added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s briefly review these pages …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can enter your business details into input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Contact Phone,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information from your User Profile inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been input into the profile fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of your pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 compliance page templates available to plugin users:
- About Us
- AdSense Disclaimer
- Affiliate Agreements
- Affiliate Disclosure
- 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
Creating legal pages for your website or blog is a simple process. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” in the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under 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 …
The Compliance Bar 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: Compliance Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can customize and delete your compliance disclaimers in the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, selecting 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 offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create multiple Compliance Bars to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses in other sections of your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile 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 through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance bar to be featured …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in different sections of your website …
You can also set a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Section: 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” section …
(EU Cookies Section: Manage Settings – Image source: 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 disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Users
Below are a couple of the testimonials and feedback that plugin users have submitted regarding 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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”If you are like me, you maybe have quite a few WordPress sites, all needing attention and most importantly, all needing to be on the right side of the law! I’ve tried several legal pages plugins and in pretty much every case, they let me down. They simply cause more work than they solve.To me, the answer should be simple. It should work and it should let me get on with building my site. After all, I know I NEED to do this stuff, but hey, I don’t really WANT to! So, for me, I don’t want those plugins that cause more work than they solve. Simple eh? Well now it is because Anton & John have just created this baby that is the answer to my needs. The Compliance Bar Plugin does what I need it to do then lets me get on with my empire building…Perfect!” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar – Useful Tips
Below are a few extra ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your website includes content that is 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.
Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated plugin support to assist users with anything they need. Users also have access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your edition of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (M – F), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Product Price
- Single – Can be installed on 1 domain that you own. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Install the plugin on all of your own domains. Install the plugin on all client sites as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The cost of purchasing Compliance Bar Plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the product sells for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product developer when you visit the plugin website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing information: Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for peace of mind.
For ”how-to” videos showing how the software works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
The Bottom Line
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered sites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Note: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on this website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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