One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your website has to comply with a number of federal, state and even local laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring significant financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and 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 site legally compliant in minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
As the digital realm continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s important to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your online presence is a fundamental component of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you will not be accepted into a range of other advertising or merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
At the very least, without making it clear to your visitors that your digital properties comply with all legal requirements and regulations, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws and regulations 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 promoting or endorsing online, and
- There are solutions that can help your site become compliant, such as the tool that we discuss below.
If you suspect that your web site is lacking in aspects of compliance, there is a simple plugin for WordPress-powered websites you should know more about.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin For WordPress is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence …
Learn more about this plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Below are just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website compliant:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like every other plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Editable Legal Page Templates
You can easily edit the built-in templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated team to help you if you experience any issues.
Some additional benefits of using the plugin include the following:
- Customized Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - an entire library of training videos is provided if you need help.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the legal 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: As long as your website is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the pages you need to add to your site and leave out the unnecessary pages.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar offers many features to site owners. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Ready to use in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – The plugin will display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed on different locations in your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Content – If your site contains content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU compliance requirements. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your site from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin records the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – The plugin uses shortcodes to populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor web browsers.
Using Compliance Bar
Once the Compliance Bar plugin is installed, you will then get access to a number of sections where you can configure the plugin’s settings.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your information can be input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Company Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information in your page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been input into the profile fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of your legal template pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Image sourced from 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
- 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 website can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button in the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Image 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 default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
Icons are customizable. You can purchase an additional set of icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can easily modify and delete your legal disclaimer templates in the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing your legal 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
The plugin offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, image 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 more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using a specific premium theme framework (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is 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 device 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 your compliance bar to display …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that restricts access to users who do not accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in different areas of your website …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and store the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Section: IP Log Details – Image 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 …
The plugin lets you customize the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” section …
(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 disclaimers and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Users
Here are just a few of the testimonials and feedback that plugin customers have submitted regarding Compliance Bar:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Below are a few extra ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your site.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If your website published content that is considered inappropriate for underaged viewers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated plugin support to assist you if you experience any difficulties. You also get access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 hours (M – F), your money will be refunded in double.
Software Price
- Single User Licensing – Can be installed on a single site. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on up to twenty-five sites that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License – Install the plugin on multiple of your own sites. 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. When we last checked, the software is being retailed for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the software seller when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Page Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a 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 demo videos of the plugin, 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 downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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