One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of breaking the law.
Your website or blog must comply with many laws and regulations, some of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering significant financial loss, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and easy-to-install solution for WordPress users that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vital to 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 web presence is a fundamental part of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social networks could suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed into many advertising or merchant networks.
Plus, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
At the very least, if you are not compliant, it could affect your visitors trust and confidence in 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 and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website.
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 and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to remain compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or using online, and
- There are plugin-based solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your business become more compliant, such as the tool that we discuss below.
In this article, we review a total compliance & disclaimer plugin for your site.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your online presence …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to make your website or blog instantly compliant:
Ready To Start Using In Very Little Time
Compliance Bar is quite easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your administrator login and activate.
Easy To Edit Legal Page Templates
You can easily edit the default compliance page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the visual editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support Team
Compliance Bar provides dedicated support to help users.
Some additional benefits of using the plugin include the following:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: The Compliance Bar 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 - a full library of training videos is available.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the legal templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Can Be Used For All Website Purposes: As long as your website is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the templates you need to add to your site and ignore irrelevant pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many features to site owners. Below we have listed just some of those features:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – The plugin displays links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Information – If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance laws. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies users and protects you from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (even in the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor mobile browsers.
Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, users have access to various settings pages.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where your information can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Company Phone Number,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to automatically populate and display the information into your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been entered into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of the page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of templates made available by the plugin when we last 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
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 the “Save” button in the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar icons can be changed. 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 Plugin: Legal Page Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can customize and delete the legal templates from the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Image 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying 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 home page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create unlimited Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses in different sections of your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme (e.g. 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 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 using a visually attractive 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 you plan to display 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 blocks access to visitors who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create a number of 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 immediately, set a cookie duration 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 source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you customize the settings for compliance with EU User 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 pages and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials and feedback plugin users have published about Compliance Bar:
”One of the most annoying parts about building out a site is to make sure it complies with the law. I always leave this part to the end because its painfully dry and boring and frankly I always just wished their was an easier way. Then I came across Compliance Bar and its literally the most versitile and brilliant plugin I have ever used. All my pages meet FTC requirements now and all I had to do was press a button! Anton and Jon..you guys friggen rock — 1000% highly recommend this!!” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
***
”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 extra ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If your website published content that is deemed inappropriate for persons below a certain age, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated plugin support to assist you if you experience any problems. Users also have access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of your cost of purchasing.
Software Price
- Single User Personal License – Install the plugin on a single site that you own. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on up to twenty-five domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Can be installed on all as many of your own sites as you like. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost to purchase the Compliance Bar Plugin software can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the plugin is being retailed for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the product author when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing: Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For ”how-to” videos showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Download The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven sites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin
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 of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
***