One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to break the law.
Your website or blog must comply with a whole set of federal, state and even local laws, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring 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 cost-effective solution for WordPress users that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules keep changing, it’s important that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your web presence is an essential part of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed into many other advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
At the very least, if you are not in compliance, trust and confidence in your business may become an issue.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
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 could be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to remain compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using online, and
- There are plugins for WordPress site owners that can help your website become more compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss in this article.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress users that provides a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your site.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin For WordPress is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your site …
Learn more about the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your site instantly legally compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Configure. Ready To Use In Minutes.
Compliance Bar is quite easy to install. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
You can easily modify the pre-built legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated plugin support to help users if they experience any problems.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a full library of training videos is available.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the templates provided in 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: If your website runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore those that are unnecessary.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of features to WordPress users. Here are just some of those features:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – The plugin displays links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed anywhere in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Information – If you plan to display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you are based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU compliance laws. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies your users and protects your website from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – The plugin uses shortcodes to populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the web browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, you have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s briefly review these pages …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where your business information can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Location Details,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to insert and display the information inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the user profile fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section contains all of the plugin’s compliance template pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 legal page templates made available:
- 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 legal pages for your website by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Create Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can modify and delete your legal pages from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing your compliance pages 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 you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, 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 offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create several Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in different sections of your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using particular theme frameworks (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, 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 compliance pages through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature the compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), you can display popups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create several Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in different areas of your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying immediately, set a cookie duration 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 Section: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law …
Compliance Bar 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” tab …
(EU Cookies Section: 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” tab, lists all of your compliance page templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Here are just a few of the testimonials that users have published about the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Useful Tips
Below are some extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protection 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 your refund terms before purchase.
- If you include content for adult readers on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated team to assist users with anything they need. Plugin users also get access to complete video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% refund guarantee. If your version 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 cost of purchase.
Product Price
- Single – Install the plugin on a single domain. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Can be installed on 25 of your own sites. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Can be installed on all of your own domains. Install the plugin on all client sites as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Price details for Compliance Bar Plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price shown above was current at the time this review was published. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin seller 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 current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For a demo video showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, 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-driven websites and blogs. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Note: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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