One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring serious financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and cost-effective WordPress solution that can help make your website compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the internet continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules of the game are constantly changing, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your web presence is an integral component of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social networks will suspend your apps, and you won’t be allowed into a number of other advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could also face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your website is not compliant, trust and confidence in your business may become an issue.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- How important it is to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or using on your website, and
- There are plugins for WordPress users that can help your website become compliant, such as the tool that we discuss below.
In this article, we review a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your online presence.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Legal Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-install plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs that includes over 20 customizable legal templates for your digital business …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your web site compliant:
Ready To Go To Work In Minutes
Compliance Bar is very easy to install. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Templates Are Easy To Edit
Easily edit the prebuilt compliance templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress visual content editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support Team
The plugin develop provides dedicated support to assist users with anything they need.
Some additional benefits of this plugin include the following:
- Customized Legal Pages: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- 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 In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the default templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Use For All Website Purposes: If your website or blog is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the pages you need to add to your site and ignore the irrelevant pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar provides many features to site owners. Below we have listed just some:
- Fast and simple to install and use. Ready to use in minutes.
- Display Attractive Icon Bar – Display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed on different locations in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Content – If your website contains content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU 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. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your site from non-compliance issues.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin records and stores your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes that populate 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 Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Once you have installed the plugin, users have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s briefly review these settings …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your business details can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to dynamically populate and display the information from your User Profile into your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area lists all of your pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
When we last checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 20 compliance pages 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 site can be easily done. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: 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 attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar icons are customizable. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily customize and delete the legal disclaimer templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you 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 position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting which pages should be included in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your main page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create an unlimited number of Compliance Bars to display different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other areas of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using a specific 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 “regular” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile 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 legal through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance icons to show …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen gives you full control over the settings and wordings 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 different uses throughout your website …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and store 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 need to be aware of EU compliance requirements …
The plugin lets you edit the settings for compliance with EU 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” area, lists all of your compliance pages and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
Feedback From Users
Below are a few of the testimonials and comments that plugin users have submitted regarding Compliance Bar Plugin:
”I got a chance to review the Compliance Bar plugin…WOW!! I have to say that its definitely one of the most NECESSARY, yet easiest to use plugin’s to hit the scene in a while. Very Solid Product. Great job Anton & team!” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Plugin Tips
Here are some additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you have content for adults only on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated plugin support to help you. You also have access to a complete set 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 cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Product Price
- Single – Install the plugin on a single site that you own. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on up to 25 sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on multiple domains that you own. Can be installed on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: Pricing details of the Compliance Bar plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the plugin retails for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual price set by the product author when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Additional Information
Legal Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for peace of mind.
For a demo video showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Get The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven sites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: Once again, 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 to ensure that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.
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