One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your digital presence needs to comply with a number of federal, state and even local laws and regulations, some of which you are probably not even 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 business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your website compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s important to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if your digital presence is an integral component of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your web apps, and you won’t be allowed into many leading advertising or merchant networks.
Plus, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being exploited by opportunistic people or organizations.
At the very least, if your website is not compliant, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may 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 promoting or using online, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress users that can help your site become compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss below.
If you suspect that your website or blog is falling short in terms of compliance, here is a simple plugin for WordPress-powered sites that you should know more about.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-install and simple-to-use plugin for WordPress-powered websites and blogs that contains over twenty customizable legal templates for your web presence …
Go here to learn more about the plugin: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your site compliant:
Ready To Start Using In Very Little Time
Compliance Bar installs just like any other WordPress plugin. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Templates
Easily make changes to the built-in legal page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated plugin support team to help users.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Legal Page 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 difficult to use - an entire library of training videos is provided.
- Use In Every Country: 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.
- Use For All Website Purposes: If your website is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the pages you want to include in your site and ignore all other unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many unique features to website owners. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Information – If your site publishes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying visitors and covering your website from non-compliance.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – The plugin records your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes to automatically populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the browser being used.
Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, you have access to various sections where you can configure the plugin’s settings.
Let’s review these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where you can input your business information into entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to populate and display the information from your User Profile fields into your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of the legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of legal templates made available by the plugin when we last checked their site:
- 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
You can easily and quickly create compliance pages for your website simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button on the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Templates – 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 built-in set of 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: Compliance Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can easily modify and delete the legal templates in the “Compliance Pages” section, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- 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. pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to show 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 front page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create several Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using particular theme frameworks (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” 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 compliance pages through a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance icons to appear …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen gives you complete control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover various uses in different areas of your site …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing 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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in the EU 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 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” tab, lists all of your compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Testimonials From Customers
Below are a few of the testimonials that users have submitted regarding Compliance Bar:
”WOW” 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)
Plugin Tips
Below are a few additional ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you publish adult content on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated plugin support team to help users if they experience any problems. You also get access to full video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% money-back 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 cost of purchase.
Plugin Pricing
- Single – Install the plugin on a single domain. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five sites that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License – Install the plugin on multiple of your own sites. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The price of Compliance Bar can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the product sells for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual price set by the product author when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Additional Information
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For a demo video showing how the software works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
What We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites and blogs. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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