One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your website must comply with numerous laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring 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 cost-effective solution for WordPress users that can help make your website legally compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
As the digital business realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules are constantly changing, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if your web presence is an integral component of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social networks could suspend your apps, and you will not be allowed into a range of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
If your business online is not in compliance, you could also face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, without making it clear to your visitors that your online properties comply with legal requirements and regulations, it may affect your visitors trust and confidence about doing any future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites 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 this website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws that govern your business,
- The importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or endorsing online, and
- There are solutions for WordPress users that can help your business become compliant, such as the solution that we review in this post.
If you suspect that your website lacks in terms of compliance, there is a simple plugin for WordPress users that you may be very interested in using.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin For WordPress is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your web site compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Configure. Ready To Use In No Time.
Compliance Bar installs just like every other plugin. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Editable Compliance Page Templates
You can easily edit the prebuilt compliance page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress visual editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated plugin support team to help you with anything you need.
Some additional benefits include:
- Customized Legal Pages: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and an entire library of training videos is available.
- Use In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the default templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used On All WordPress Sites: As long as your website is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the legal pages you want to include in your site and leave out the irrelevant pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers many features to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Ready to go to work in no time.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – The plugin will display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Information – If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies users and covers your site from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records and stores your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes to automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the popups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Using Compliance Bar
Once the plugin has been installed, the plugin’s “Settings” screen gets added to your WP admin area.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where you can enter your information into input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to populate the information from your User Profile into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen lists all of the templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of templates made available by the plugin last time we checked their 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can create legal pages for your blog or website quickly and easily simply by selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Screenshot 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 built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons can be changed. You can purchase an additional set of icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can easily customize and delete the compliance pages in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin will notify you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. legal pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, specifying which pages should be included in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your home page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create a number of Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other sections of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, even if you are using a specific 3rd-party theme framework (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme settings 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 feature your compliance bar …
PopUps
If your website contains content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that blocks access to users who do not accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in other areas of your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and capture 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 your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must 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” tab …
(EU Cookies Screen: 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” screen, lists all of your legal templates 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 updates …
Testimonials
Below are just some testimonials that plugin users have submitted for Compliance Bar:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”If you are like me, you maybe have quite a few WordPress sites, all needing attention and most importantly, all needing to be on the right side of the law! I’ve tried several legal pages plugins and in pretty much every case, they let me down. They simply cause more work than they solve.To me, the answer should be simple. It should work and it should let me get on with building my site. After all, I know I NEED to do this stuff, but hey, I don’t really WANT to! So, for me, I don’t want those plugins that cause more work than they solve. Simple eh? Well now it is because Anton & John have just created this baby that is the answer to my needs. The Compliance Bar Plugin does what I need it to do then lets me get on with my empire building…Perfect!” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Plugin 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 your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you publish content for adults only on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated plugin support team to assist users with anything they need. You also have access to full video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% refund guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (M – F), the plugin developers will refund twice your purchasing price.
Plugin Pricing
- Single – Install the plugin on 1 of your own domains. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on twenty-five sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Licensing – Can be installed on all as many of your own domains as you like. Can be installed on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The cost of purchasing the Compliance Bar software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the product is selling for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the product author when you visit the plugin website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing information: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a 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 a demo video of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Download This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Note: Once again, 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 the law wherever your business is based.
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