One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering serious financial loss, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and very inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your site legally compliant in minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s vitally important that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your online presence is an essential component of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social sites will suspend your apps, and you will not be accepted into various other advertising or merchant networks.
If your online business is not in compliance, you could also face a whole range 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 legal requirements and guidelines, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- How important it is to be compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or using in your website, and
- There are plugin-based solutions for WordPress users that can help your business become compliant, such as the solution that we review in this post.
In this article, we review a simple plugin for WordPress websites that provides a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your online business.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Quick And Simple To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like any regular WP plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin account and activate.
Page Templates Are Easy To Edit
You can easily make changes to the built-in compliance page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress visual content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support Team
Compliance Bar plugin provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist users if they experience any difficulties.
Some additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - an entire library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the default legal templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Use In All Niches: As long as your website runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the compliance pages you want to include in your site and leave out all other irrelevant pages.
Features
Compliance Bar provides a number of great features to web site owners. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in no time.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Content – If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business in the EU 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 visitors and protects your business from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin can record your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – 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 or blog, (even in the pop-ups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Using The Plugin
Once you have installed the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured is added to your WP admin area.
Let’s briefly review these settings …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your business details can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to dynamically insert and display the information from your User Profile in your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been input into the user profile fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area lists all of the plugin’s legal template pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of legal templates made available by the plugin when we last checked the site:
- 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 create compliance pages for your website or blog quite easily simply by selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image sourced from 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 icons are customizable. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your site’s design …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can easily customize and delete the legal templates from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing the compliance templates is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. legal pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting 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, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create an unlimited number of Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover different uses in other areas of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific theme (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is 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, you can only select up to a certain number of page icons to display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have configured your Compliance Bar settings, it will display 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 display your compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen lets you fully customize 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 a range of uses in other sections of your site …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and store 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 you do business in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, 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” 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” screen, lists all of your legal disclaimers and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Customers
Below are a few of the testimonials customers have published about the Compliance Bar plugin:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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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)
Plugin Tips
Here are some extra ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your site.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your site published content that is deemed inappropriate for minors, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated support to help you if you experience any difficulties. You also get access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 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), your money will be refunded in double.
Plugin Cost
- Single User License – Can be installed on one of your own domains. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on all domains that you own. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The price of Compliance Bar can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current price when this article was published. This may not be the actual price set by the plugin author when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing information here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Additional Info
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Install The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites and blogs. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article. 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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