One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your digital presence has to comply with various laws, some of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering significant financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and very inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your website compliant in minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
As the internet continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules keep changing, it’s important to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your online presence is an integral aspect of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you won’t be accepted into most advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If your digital presence is not compliant, you could end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your website complies with all legal requirements and regulations, trust and confidence in your business could be damaged.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to many 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),
- How important it is to maintain compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or using online, and
- There are solutions that can help your website become more compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss in this article.
If your web site is lacking in terms of compliance, there is a simple WordPress plugin that you should know more about.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-use WordPress plugin with over 20 customizable compliance templates for your online presence …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Ready To Start Using In Minutes
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like every plugin. Simply upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Legal Page Templates Are Easy To Edit
Easily edit the prebuilt legal templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated support to help users if they experience any issues.
Additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin will create 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 complete library of training videos is available if you need help.
- 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 legal templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use On All WordPress Sites: As long as your website or blog is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any that are irrelevant.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar provides a number of great features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Display Attractive Icon Bar – Compliance Bar displays links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Information – If your website publishes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display popups that force users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies users and protects your business from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin records the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – 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, (even in the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor web browsers.
Using Compliance Bar
Once the Compliance Bar plugin has been installed, users will have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your information can be input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile fields into your page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area contains all of your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 legal templates available to WordPress 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
You can easily and quickly create legal pages for your website by simply selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar 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 Plugin: Legal Page Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can edit and delete the compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Page Templates – Screenshot 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. compliance pages created before you installed 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, icon size, selecting 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, and more …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different icons on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in other areas of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your site, even if you are using a specific theme (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, you can only select up to a certain number of page icons to display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have specified your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your compliance pages through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to display the compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that force users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area 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 range of uses in other sections of your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up 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 Section: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you edit the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” tab …
(EU Cookies Section: Manage Settings – Screenshot 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” tab, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify 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 Testimonials
Below are just some testimonials and feedback that users have published about Compliance Bar:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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”I wanted to reach out & say Compliance Bar is a truly amazing product for keeping my online marketing efforts on the right side of the internet laws. Not only does it look fantastic on my sites, it is also intuitive and robustly powerful. It is packed full of features to allow me the flexibility to control exactly what my visitors need to see and know” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Here are some useful ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If your website contains content for adults only, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated plugin support to assist users. You also have access to an entire library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty 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 business hours (M – F), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Software Price
- Single User License – Can be installed on one of your own domains. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on up to twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Licensing – Install the plugin on multiple domains that you own. Install the plugin on all client sites as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Pricing for the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the price at the time this article was published. This may not be the actual price set by the plugin developer when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing information: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. 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 showing how the software works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Get The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites and blogs. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer 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 is compliant with the law in your country or region.
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