One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your internet presence needs to comply with a whole range of federal, state and even local laws and regulations, some of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring significant financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules constantly change, it’s important to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is an essential aspect of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you will not be accepted into a number of other advertising or merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
At the very least, without making it clear to your visitors that your site complies with legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, trust and confidence in your business may become an issue.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or using online, and
- There are plugin-based solutions for WordPress users that can help your website become more compliant, such as the plugin that we review below.
If your website lacks in aspects of compliance, below we discuss a simple WordPress plugin you should know more about.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple plugin for WordPress-powered sites with over twenty customizable compliance page templates for your web presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website or blog legally compliant:
Ready To Go To Work In No Time
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like any plugin. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Editable Templates
You can easily make changes to the pre-built compliance page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress visual content editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated plugin support to help users if they experience any difficulties.
Some additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Templates: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a full library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the default legal page templates provided in Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use For Every Website Purpose: If your site runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any pages that you don’t require.
Features
Compliance Bar provides a number of great features to site owners. Below we have listed just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Information – If you plan to display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you are based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU compliance laws. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and protects your business from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record and store the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the pop-ups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor web browsers.
Using Compliance Bar
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” area will be added to your WordPress dashboard.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your business details can be input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Business Address,” “Location Details,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been entered into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of the pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of template pages made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last checked their website:
- 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
You can create legal pages for your website or blog quickly and easily simply by selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
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 Compliance Templates
You can easily edit and delete the compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing 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
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, 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 more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create a number of Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover various uses in different areas of your site.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using particular premium themes (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is 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 specified your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your compliance pages using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance icons to appear …
PopUps
If your website has content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your site …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and capture 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 you do business 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 …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you edit the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” area …
(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” area, lists all of your legal disclaimer templates 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 getting plugin update notifications …
User Testimonials
Here are just a few of the testimonials customers have provided for 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)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar – Useful Tips
Below are some extra ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages of your website only.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If you have adult content on your site, 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. Users also have access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 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 business hours (Monday to Friday), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Software Price
- Single Site Personal License – Can be installed on 1 of your own sites. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Licensing – Install the plugin on multiple of your own domains. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The cost to purchase the Compliance Bar software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the software is selling for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin developer when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Additional Plugin Info
Legal Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, 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 sites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website. 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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