One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering both financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your site legally compliant in minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules constantly change, it’s vitally important that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains legally compliant, especially if your digital presence is a fundamental component of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed into various leading advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
If your business online 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 your business online is not in compliance, trust and confidence in your business could be damaged.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
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 a number of legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or using in your website, and
- There are plugins for WordPress website owners that can help your site become compliant, such as the solution that we review below.
If you suspect that your website is falling short in terms of compliance, there is a simple WordPress plugin you may be interested in using.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Legal Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use WordPress plugin with over 20 customizable legal pages for your online presence …
To learn more about this plugin go here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website or blog legally compliant:
Be Up And Running In Very Little Time
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like any WP plugin. Simply upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WP admin account and activate.
Easily Editable Templates
Easily edit the prebuilt legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the visual content editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated plugin support to assist you if you experience any difficulties.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and an entire library of training videos is available if users need assistance.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the 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 All Website Purposes: As long as your site runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the legal pages you want to add to your site and ignore all other irrelevant pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers many features to website owners. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Ready to use in no time.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Content – If you plan to publish content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business 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 business from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin can record and store your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor web browsers.
Plugin Features – Details
After installing and activating the plugin, you have access to a number of settings pages.
Let’s review these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where your information can be entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Business Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been entered into the profile fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen lists all of the plugin’s page templates …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 20 legal templates 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 legal pages for your website or blog can be easily done. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” on the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to 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 theme …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can edit and delete your compliance page templates in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing 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 offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon 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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create multiple Compliance Bars to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using a specific WordPress theme framework (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” 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 compliance pages through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature your compliance bar …
PopUps
If your website contains content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), you can display pop-ups that blocks access to users who do not accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you complete control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create multiple customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your website …
You can also specify 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 appearing 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 – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU compliance laws …
The Compliance Bar 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” 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 edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
Testimonials
Here are a couple of the testimonials that plugin users have written about the Compliance Bar plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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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 – Useful 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 only on specific pages of your website.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If you have content that is inappropriate for persons below a certain age on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated support to help users with anything they need. You also get access to a complete library of training videos.
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 (M – F), your money will be refunded in double.
Product Cost
- Single User Personal License – Can be installed on 1 of your own domains. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on up to twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Licensing – Install the plugin on multiple of your own sites. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: Pricing for this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the product is selling for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual price set by the product 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 details here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Additional Information
Legal Pages Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For a demo video showing how the plugin works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, 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-driven sites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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