One of the worst situations you can find yourself in 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 the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering financial losses, 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 very inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your website compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the digital business realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules are constantly changing, it’s important that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains legally compliant, especially if your digital presence is a fundamental part of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social networks could suspend your applications, and you won’t be accepted into various leading advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you are not compliant, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: 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 may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws that govern your business,
- The importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or using online, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your website become more compliant, such as the solution that we review in this article.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress-powered websites that provides a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your online presence.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple WordPress plugin containing over 20 customizable compliance pages for your digital presence …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website legally compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Set Up. Be Up And Running In Very Little Time.
Compliance Bar Plugin is really easy to install. Simply upload a zip folder that contains the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your administrator area and activate.
Editable Page Templates
Easily edit the prebuilt templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the visual content editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated support team to help users if they experience any difficulties.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Customized Compliance Page Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a full library of training videos is provided.
- 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 in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Use For Every Website Purpose: If your website or blog runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers that suit your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any pages that you don’t need.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many features to WordPress users. Here are just some:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Be up and running in no time.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – The plugin will display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Restricted Content – If your site publishes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force 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 Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and covers your business from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record and store the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes to automatically populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the popups).
- Works On Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the browser being used.
Features – Details
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured gets added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your business details can be input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Location Details,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to insert the information in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 22 compliance pages available to WordPress users:
- 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
- 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 ”Save” at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from 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 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 Plugin: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can easily customize and delete the compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- 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. legal pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, specifying which pages to include an icon for 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 – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your site.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using a specific WordPress theme framework (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile device 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 displays links to your compliance pages 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 icons …
PopUps
If your site contains content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create a number of Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your website …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and even 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 you do business in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
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” section …
(EU Cookies Section: Manage Settings – Image 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 disclaimers and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
Feedback From Plugin Customers
Here are just a few of the testimonials customers have published about the Compliance Bar plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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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
Useful Tips
Below are some useful ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If your site includes content for adult readers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated support team to assist users if they experience any difficulties. Users also get access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty 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), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of the purchase price.
Product Cost
- Single Site Personal License – Install the plugin on one of your own sites. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Can be installed on up to twenty-five of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Install the plugin on multiple of your own sites. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost to purchase the Compliance Bar software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price above was current at the time this review was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin author when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing details: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for peace of mind.
For ”how-to” videos of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer 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 websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Note: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
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