One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your website or blog has to comply with many federal, state and even local laws and regulations, many of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring serious financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your website legally compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues growing at breakneck speed and rules keep changing, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your digital presence is an essential part of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, 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 close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your web apps, and you will not be allowed into various leading advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits or legal action.
At the very least, if you are not compliant, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to be seriously diminished.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with compulsory 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 using in your website, and
- There are plugin-based solutions for WordPress users that can help your business become more compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
If you suspect that your web site lacks in aspects of compliance, below we review a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites that you should know more about.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple and easy-to-use WordPress plugin containing over twenty customizable compliance templates for your site …
Go here to learn more about this plugin: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website legally compliant:
Fast And Easy To Install And Configure. Be Up And Running In No Time.
Compliance Bar Plugin is quite easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP administrator section and activate.
Easy To Edit Page Templates
You can easily edit the default compliance page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support Team
The plugin developers provide a dedicated plugin support team to assist you if you experience any issues.
Some additional benefits of using the plugin include:
- Customized Templates: 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 - an entire library of training videos is available.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the legal templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Use In All Niches: As long as your site runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers that pertain to your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any templates that are irrelevant.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides a number of great features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and easy to install and set up. Ready to start using in very little time.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – The plugin displays links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Content – If you plan to publish content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is 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. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and covers your website from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – The plugin records and stores your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the popups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Using Compliance Bar
Once the plugin is installed, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured will be added to your WordPress backend.
Let’s briefly review these sections …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where your business details can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate the information from your User Profile fields inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been input into the profile fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of the templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 20 compliance page templates available to plugin users:
- 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
You can easily create compliance pages for your website by simply selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar 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 theme …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can edit and delete the compliance disclaimer templates in the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing 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 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, 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 Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses in different areas of your website.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using particular 3rd-party theme frameworks (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” 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 specified 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 to display your compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create several Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover various uses in different sections of your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, 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 Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
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” area …
(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” section, lists all of your legal disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Testimonials
Below are just some testimonials and feedback that customers have published about the Compliance Bar Plugin 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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”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)
Useful Tips
Below are a few useful ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If you include content that is inappropriate for minors on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated plugin support team to assist users. Plugin users also have access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of your cost of purchase.
Plugin Pricing
- Single License Edition – Can be installed on one site that you own. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Install the plugin on up to 25 of your own sites. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Can be installed on all sites that you own. Install the plugin on all client sites as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Pricing for the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the product is being retailed for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin seller when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers state 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 to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how-to” videos of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Install This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law in your country or region.
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