One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering both financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your website legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game are constantly changing, it’s vitally important that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your digital presence is an integral aspect of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your apps, and you won’t be allowed into most advertising or merchant networks.
If your online business is not compliant, you could end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, without making it clear to your visitors that your website complies with legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, trust and confidence in your business may seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may probably 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 are promoting or endorsing online, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress users that can help your website become compliant, such as the plugin that we review below.
If you suspect that your web site is falling short in areas of compliance, here is a simple plugin for WordPress users you should know more about.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple and easy-to-use WordPress plugin that contains over 20 customizable compliance templates for your website …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to make your site instantly compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin is quite easy to install. Simply upload a zip file that contains the plugin to your Plugins folder via your administrator section and activate.
Editable Page Templates
Easily edit the built-in compliance page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated team to assist you if you experience any issues.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized 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 and a full library of training videos is provided if you need help.
- Use Anywhere In The World: 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: As long as your website or blog is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the templates you want to add to your site and leave out the unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many unique features to site owners. Below we have listed just some of these:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Attractive Icon Bar – Compliance Bar will display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Content – If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that force 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 EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies users and covers your website from non-compliance.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes that automatically populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the pop-ups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the browser being used.
Using The Plugin
Once the Compliance Bar plugin is installed, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured is added to your WP backend.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where your business details can be entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Company Phone Number,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information you have entered into your User Profile fields into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of the plugin’s templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of templates made available by the plugin when we last checked their website:
- 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 legal pages for your website is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button on the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside 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 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 Plugin: Legal Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can easily edit and delete your compliance pages from the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing your legal templates is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have 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 home page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using particular theme frameworks (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme settings 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 displays links to your compliance pages using a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance bar to appear …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in different sections of your site …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and record 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 your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance requirements …
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 Section: 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 pages and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, 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 and feedback plugin users have written about the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Useful Tips
Below are a few additional ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your site includes content for adult readers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated team to help users with anything they need. You also get access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% refund guarantee. If your edition of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double the cost of purchase.
Software Pricing
- Single License Edition – Install the plugin on a single domain. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Install the plugin on twenty-five sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on multiple as many of your own sites as you like. Can be installed on all client sites as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost of purchasing the Compliance Bar Plugin product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the plugin sells for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here: Compliance Bar
Additional Information
Legal Pages Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers state 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 advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For demo videos of the plugin in action, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Download The Plugin
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 complete details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no 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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