One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a 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 many federal, state and even local laws, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering serious financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital realm continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules are constantly changing, it’s vitally important that you stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your digital presence is a fundamental aspect of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be accepted into a range of other advertising and merchant networks.
If your web presence 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, without making it very clear to your visitors that your web properties comply with all legal requirements and guidelines, it could affect your visitors trust and confidence in doing business with you in the future.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with compulsory 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 are offering or endorsing online, and
- There are plugins for WordPress site owners that can help your site become more compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss below.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress-powered websites that provides a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your website.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your site …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your web site legally compliant:
Ready To Start Using In No Time
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like any other plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your admin user login and activate.
Page Templates Are Easy To Edit
You can easily make changes to the prebuilt templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress visual content editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated support team to assist users with anything they need.
Some additional benefits of this plugin include the following:
- Customized Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and an entire library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that 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 anywhere in the world.
- Use For Every Website Purpose: If your site runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers that pertain to your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any templates that are not required.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of great features to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Display Attractive Icon Bar – Display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Content – If your site publishes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying visitors and covering your site from non-compliance.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – The plugin records your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the pop-ups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the web browser being used.
Using The Plugin
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar 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 you can enter your business details into input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information from your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the profile fields, you can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area contains all of the plugin’s templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of legal templates made available by the plugin when we last 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
Creating compliance pages for your website or blog is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons are customizable. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can easily modify and delete your compliance disclaimer templates from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to show links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting which pages should be included in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your main 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 several Compliance Bars to display different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, even if you are using a specific 3rd-party theme framework (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 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 displays 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 icons to display …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display popups that blocks access to users who do not accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create several customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your site …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want the Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration 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 – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in Europe 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 …
The plugin 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” 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” screen, lists all of your compliance page 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 updates …
User Feedback
Below are a few of the testimonials and comments plugin users have written about Compliance Bar:
”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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”You wouldn’t drive a car around without insurance…so don’t RISK your online business by neglecting a simple, but important detail: website compliance. Grab your copy of Compliance Bar & protect yourself today!” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Here are a few useful ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site published content that is considered inappropriate for minors, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist users if they experience any issues. Users also have access to full 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 hrs (M – F), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Plugin Cost
- Single – Can be installed on one of your own domains. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on up to twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License – Can be installed on multiple of your own domains. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The cost of purchasing the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin retails for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here: Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Additional Plugin Information
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
What We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Note: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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