One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of breaking a law or regulation.
Your website or blog must comply with a whole range of federal, state and even local laws and regulations, many of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering serious financial costs, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your site fully compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
As the internet continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game are constantly changing, it’s important to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your online presence is an integral aspect of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, 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 for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social sites could suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed into most leading advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your website complies with all legal requirements and regulations, it may affect your visitors trust and confidence about doing any future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or using online, and
- There are plugins for WordPress site owners that can help your business become compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss in this post.
If your website or blog is falling short in terms of compliance, there is a simple WordPress plugin that you should know more about.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-use plugin for WordPress-driven sites containing over twenty customizable legal templates for your site …
For more details go here: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your web site compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin is really easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easily Editable Templates
You can easily edit the default templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG content editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated plugin support to help you with anything you need.
Additional benefits include:
- Customized Legal Templates: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a complete library of training videos is provided.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the built-in templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use On All WordPress Sites: If your website or blog runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any that are not required.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many features to WP users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Attractive Icon Bar – Display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Content – If your website includes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you are based in Europe 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 displays an attractive bar notifying your users and covering you from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records and stores the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the mobile browser being used.
Using The Plugin
After installing and activating the plugin, you will have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can enter your business details into input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Registered Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information in your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the profile fields, users can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of the legal template pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 20 compliance page templates made available:
- 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
Creating compliance pages for your blog or website can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button on the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons are customizable. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily customize and delete the legal disclaimers in the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies 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 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 Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create an unlimited number of Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your site.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific theme (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” 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 configured your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your legal through a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance icons to be featured …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other areas of your site …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and capture 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 your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to 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 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” area, lists all of your compliance page 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 getting plugin updates …
User Feedback
Here are a couple of the testimonials and comments plugin users have submitted for the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”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)
***
”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)
Useful Tips
Below are some extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your website only.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site includes content for adult readers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist users with anything they need. You also get access to an entire set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty 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 (M – F), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Product Pricing
- Single – Can be installed on a single domain. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Install the plugin on twenty-five of your own sites. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Can be installed on multiple as many of your own sites as you want. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: Current pricing for Compliance Bar Plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the software sells for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the product seller when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing details here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For a demo video showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
In Conclusion
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered 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 information, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Legal Disclaimer: 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.
***