One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your internet presence must comply with a number of 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 post, we look at a simple and very inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your website legally compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if your web presence is a significant component of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed into many other advertising or merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits.
At the very least, if your business online is not compliant, it could affect your visitors trust and confidence about doing any future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with compulsory federal, state and local laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to maintain compliance 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 plugin-based solutions for WordPress site owners that can help your business become more compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
If your website or blog is falling short in aspects of compliance, here is a simple plugin for WordPress users you should know more about.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your site …
For more details go here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website instantly legally compliant:
Quick And Simple To Install And Implement. Ready To Start Using In Minutes.
Compliance Bar is really easy to install. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WordPress admin user section and activate.
Page Templates Are Really Easy To Edit
Easily modify the default compliance templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated plugin support team to help users with anything they need.
Some additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: Compliance Bar creates 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 available.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the built-in legal templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use For All Niches: As long as your website or blog is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the legal pages you need to include in your site and leave out any irrelevant pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many unique features to WP users. Below we have listed just some:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Ready to go to work in no time.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Compliance Bar will display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Content – If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force 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 need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies your users and protects your business from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – The plugin can record the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to automatically populate compliance pages 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 or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor browsers.
Using Compliance Bar
After installing and activating the plugin, users will then get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s briefly review these settings …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can input your information into entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Business Address,” “Location Details,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to dynamically populate and display the information from your User Profile fields in your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been entered into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of your compliance pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
When we last checked the plugin website, there were over 20 legal pages available, addressing all aspects of compliance:
- 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 checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar icons are customizable. 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 Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can easily edit and delete the legal templates from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, specifying which pages should be included in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your front page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create an unlimited number of Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses in different areas of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using a specific WordPress theme framework (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” WordPress 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 specified your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your compliance pages using a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance icons to appear …
PopUps
If your site has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), you can display pop-ups that restricts access to users who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you complete control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover various uses in different sections of your website …
You can also specify 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 even record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance laws …
The plugin lets you customize the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” section …
(EU Cookies Screen: 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 compliance pages and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
User Feedback
Here are just some testimonials that customers have published about Compliance Bar Plugin:
”When I got my hands on Compliance Bar, I knew I needed help to be compliant, but I had no idea how much danger I was in, nor did I know all of the different things I needed to be compliant. Once I installed Compliance Bar, I was able to very quickly add all the items I needed to ensure I didn’t end up getting fined by various agencies, or have my site pulled from Google. The best part is that getting it all set up took only minutes, and I know that I am far safer than I was. Compliance Bar is one of the best plugins I have used in a long time.” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Below are some useful ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your website includes content for adult viewers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated plugin support to help users with anything they need. Plugin users also have access to a complete library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% refund guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (Monday to Friday), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Software Cost
- Single User License – Can be installed on one of your own domains. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Can be installed on up to 25 sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Install the plugin on multiple domains that you own. Can be installed on all client sites as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: The price of the Compliance Bar software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin sells for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin seller when you visit the product site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For ”how-to” videos of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
In Conclusion
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
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