One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of having broken a law or regulation.
Your website has to comply with a whole range of laws, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring both 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 cost-effective solution for WordPress users that can help make your website legally compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules keep changing, it’s important that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your digital presence is an essential aspect of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain 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 will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and other social networks will suspend your web apps, and you will not be accepted into a number of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
At the very least, if your digital presence is not compliant, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal 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 could be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to remain compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or endorsing in your website, and
- There are easy-to-use solutions that can help your website become more compliant, such as the solution that we discuss in this post.
If your web site is falling short in terms of compliance, below we discuss a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs that you may be very interested in knowing more about.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your web site compliant:
Really Easy To Install
Compliance Bar installs like any regular WordPress plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Page Templates
Easily edit the default compliance page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support Team
The plugin developers provide dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help you.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Customized Compliance Pages: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a full library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the default legal templates provided in Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Can Be Used For All Niches: As long as your site is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the pages you need to add to your site and leave out unnecessary pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of great features to WordPress users. Here are just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Information – If your website contains content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to 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 you from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records and stores the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the pop-ups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features – Details
After installing and activating the plugin, users will have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where your business information can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of the compliance template pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
When we last checked the plugin website, there were over 22 compliance page templates made available:
- 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
Creating compliance pages for your website is a simple process. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Image 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 default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons can be changed. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can edit and delete your legal pages in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing your legal pages 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 you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers 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 to include an icon for 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 – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other sections of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme framework (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” 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 legal through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature the compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want the 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 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 visitors in the EU, you need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
Compliance Bar 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” screen …
(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” tab, lists all of your compliance pages and shortcodes, and lets you modify their 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 Users
Here are some of the testimonials and comments that customers have published about the Compliance Bar plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar – Useful Tips
Below are a few useful ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you have adult content on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated team to help users with anything they need. You also get access to complete video training manuals.
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 hours (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund twice your purchase price.
Product Pricing
- Single User License – Install the plugin on a single domain that you own. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License – Install the plugin on multiple of your own domains. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Pricing for Compliance Bar Plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the plugin is selling for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual price set by the software seller when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For demo videos of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
In Conclusion
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.
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