One of the worst predicaments 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 not only puts you at risk of incurring financial costs, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your website fully compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the digital business realm continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules are constantly changing, it’s vital to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your digital presence is an integral aspect of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social sites could suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed into various leading advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
If your digital presence is not compliant, you could face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your web properties comply with 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 services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- How important it is to remain compliant 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 tool that we review below.
In this article, you will learn about a total compliance and disclaimer plugin for your WordPress-based digital business.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a simple and easy-to-install WordPress plugin with over 20 customizable legal templates for your site …
Go here to learn more about this plugin: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar
Here we have listed just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your website instantly compliant:
Ready To Use In Very Little Time
Compliance Bar Plugin is very easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easily Editable Legal Page Templates
Easily edit the prebuilt legal page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the visual content editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help users with anything they need.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Legal Pages: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a complete library of training videos is available.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the built-in legal page templates provided in Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use For All Website Purposes: If your website runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the templates you need to include in your site and leave out all other irrelevant pages.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar provides many unique features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and implement. Ready to start using in no time.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – Compliance Bar will display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Content – If your website publishes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you are 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 notifying your visitors and covering your business from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records and stores your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes that populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the web browser being used.
Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” screen gets added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your business details can be input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Registered Company Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the profile fields, you can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of the legal pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
When we last checked the Compliance Bar 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
You can create legal pages for your website quickly and easily by simply selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” on the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of attractive 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: Legal Page Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can easily edit and delete your compliance disclaimer templates from the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing 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 where to position the bar, whether to show links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, specifying 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, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using particular 3rd-party theme frameworks (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” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile screens, 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 will display links to your compliance pages using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to display the compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section gives you complete control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in different sections of your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and capture 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 visitors in the EU, you need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
The 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” screen …
(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” section, lists all of your compliance pages and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Testimonials From Plugin Customers
Below are just some testimonials and feedback that plugin users have provided for Compliance Bar:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Plugin Tips
Below are a few extra ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your site.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If your site contains content for adult viewers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated team to assist users. Users also get access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your edition of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 business hours (Monday to Friday), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Plugin Pricing
- Single – Can be installed on 1 of your own sites. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on all sites that you own. Can be installed on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost to purchase Compliance Bar Plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin sells for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product seller when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing information here: Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal page templates have 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 showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
What We Recommend
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.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.
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