One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring significant financial losses, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the digital business realm continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules are constantly changing, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your online presence is an essential aspect of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social sites could suspend your web apps, and you won’t be allowed into many leading advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits.
At the very least, if your website is not compliant, 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 services require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- The importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or endorsing on your website, and
- There are inexpensive solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the solution that we discuss in this post.
If your web site is falling short in areas of compliance, there is a simple WordPress plugin you will probably be very interested in knowing more about.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital business …
For more details go here: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar
Below are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website or blog instantly compliant:
Very Easy To Install
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like any other plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin user section and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Templates
You can easily edit the built-in legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG content editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated team to assist you if you experience any difficulties.
Additional benefits of the plugin include the following:
- Customized Compliance Templates: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and an entire library of training videos is available if users need help.
- Use In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the default legal page templates provided with 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 is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the pages you want to include in your site and ignore unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many unique features to site owners. Below we have listed just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Ready to start using in no time.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Information – If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms and 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 requirements. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your website from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Addresses – The plugin records your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
After installing and activating the plugin, you 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 categories in this area where your business information can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to automatically populate and display the information in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been entered into the user profile fields, you can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of the plugin’s compliance page templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of template pages made available by the Compliance Bar plugin last time we checked the website:
- 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
Creating compliance pages for your blog or website is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” on the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default 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: Legal Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can easily customize and delete your legal templates in the “Compliance Pages” screen, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing the compliance pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, specifying 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 Section: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create multiple Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using a specific premium theme (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), 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 will display 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 bar to be featured …
PopUps
If your website includes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create unlimited customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website …
You can also set a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and record 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 your business is based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law …
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 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 compliance page templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
User Feedback
Here are a few of the testimonials and comments that users have submitted regarding Compliance Bar Plugin:
”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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”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 – Useful Tips
Here are a few extra ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If you include content that is inappropriate for underaged viewers on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help you with anything you need. Plugin users also have access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 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 (Monday to Friday), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Plugin Cost
- Single License Edition – Can be installed on one of your own sites. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on up to twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License Edition – Can be installed on all of your own domains. Install the plugin on any client site 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. The pricing shown above was current at the time this review was published. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product seller when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Pages Approved 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 strongly 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 plugin works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our 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 wherever your business is based.
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