One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your website must comply with a whole range of federal, state and even local laws, some of which you may not even be 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 cost-effective WordPress solution that can help make your website fully compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is an integral part of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal 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 close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed into various advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
At the very least, without making it clear to your visitors that your website complies with legal requirements and guidelines, trust and confidence in your business may become an issue.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with compulsory federal, state or local laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to maintain compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or using online, and
- There are solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the solution that we review in this post.
In this article, we review a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for a WordPress-based web presence.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-use plugin for WordPress websites and blogs containing over 20 customizable legal disclaimers for your website …
More info: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website or blog legally compliant:
Fast And Easy To Install And Set Up. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like any WordPress plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your WP admin section and activate.
Editable Page Templates
Easily edit the prebuilt compliance page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress visual editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated team to help you if you experience any issues.
Additional benefits include the following:
- Customized Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a complete library of training videos is available.
- 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 templates provided with Compliance Bar 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 site is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the pages you want to include in your site and ignore unnecessary pages.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many unique features to WP users. Below we have listed just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – Compliance Bar will 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.
- Show Sensitive Information – If your site publishes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you are based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU compliance laws. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and protects your business from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin records the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes to populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the pop-ups).
- 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.
Using Compliance Bar
After installing and activating the plugin, you will get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s review these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where you can enter your business information into input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to dynamically insert the information you have input into your User Profile fields inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been input into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area contains all of the legal pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 20 compliance pages available to WordPress users:
- 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 compliance pages for your site quite easily by simply selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed 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 theme …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can modify and delete the legal page templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing the compliance pages 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting which pages should be included in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your main page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create an unlimited number of Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using particular theme frameworks (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 devices, 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 using a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to display the compliance icons …
PopUps
If your website has content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that restricts access to users who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: 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 throughout your website …
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 even 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 your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
Compliance Bar lets you manage the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” screen …
(EU Cookies Section: 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” area, lists all of your compliance pages and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
User Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials and comments plugin customers have provided for Compliance Bar:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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”You wouldn’t drive a car around without insurance…so don’t RISK your online business by neglecting a simple, but important detail: website compliance. Grab your copy of Compliance Bar & protect yourself today!” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Plugin Tips
Below are some additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protection 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 your refund terms before purchase.
- If your site includes adult content, 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 you with anything you need. Plugin users also get access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 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 hours (Monday to Friday), your money will be refunded in double.
Plugin Price
- Single User Licensing – Install the plugin on a single domain that you own. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on 25 of your own sites. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License – Can be installed on all of your own sites. Can be installed on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Pricing details of the Compliance Bar software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin sells for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the software author when you visit the plugin website 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: Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how to” videos of the plugin in action, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Install The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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