One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to break the law.
Your website must comply with various federal, state and even local laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring financial costs, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good 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 fully compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues growing at breakneck speed and rules are constantly changing, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is an essential part of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and other social sites could suspend your web applications, and you will not be accepted into various advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being slapped with a lawsuit.
At the very least, if your website is not in compliance, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws that govern your business,
- The importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or endorsing online, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress users that can help your website become more compliant, such as the tool that we review in this article.
If your website is lacking in areas of compliance, there is a simple plugin for WordPress-powered websites you may be very interested in knowing more about.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Legal Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
For more details go here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your web site instantly compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Set Up. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin is quite easy to install. Simply upload a zip folder that contains the plugin to your Plugin folder via your admin user account and activate.
Easy To Edit Templates
Easily modify the built-in compliance templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress visual editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist you if you experience any difficulties.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Compliance Page Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a complete library of training videos is available.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the legal templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Use In All Niches: If your website or blog is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Just select the legal pages you want to include in your site and ignore any unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar provides many features to site owners. Here are just some:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icon Bar – The plugin displays links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Content – If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and protects your business from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin records and stores the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (even in the pop-ups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” screen gets added to your WordPress admin area.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where your business details can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to dynamically insert and display the information into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the user profile fields, you can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of the page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of template pages 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 or blog simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” screen …
(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 is installed with a built-in 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can customize and delete the legal page templates from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing the compliance pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, selecting 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create an unlimited number of Compliance Bars to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using particular theme frameworks (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” 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 specified your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your legal using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature your compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover different uses in different sections of your site …
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 period, and record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
The plugin 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” 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” screen, lists all of your compliance pages and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials plugin customers have submitted for the Compliance Bar plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar 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.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If your site includes content for adults only, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated plugin support team to help users with anything they need. Users also have access to full video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 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 business hours (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund twice the amount of the purchase price.
Plugin Price
- Single User Personal License – Install the plugin on a single domain. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Install the plugin on multiple of your own domains. Can be installed on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Pricing details of the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the price when this review was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin seller when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal 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 to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how to” videos of the plugin, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
In Conclusion
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here. 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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