One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring serious financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and 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 site fully compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules constantly change, it’s important that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your digital presence is an essential aspect of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and other social sites could suspend your apps, and you will not be accepted into most other advertising and merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits.
At the very least, if your website is not in compliance, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article.
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 that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- The importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using online, and
- There are solutions for WordPress users that can help your website become compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss in this post.
In this article, we review a simple WordPress plugin that provides a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital presence.
Presenting …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-use plugin for WordPress users with over 20 customizable legal page templates for your online presence …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website instantly legally compliant:
Ready To Use In Minutes
Compliance Bar installs like any other plugin. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Easy To Edit Page Templates
Easily edit the prebuilt templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress visual editor.
Dedicated Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated plugin support to help you if you experience any difficulties.
Some additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Compliance Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a complete library of training videos is available.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the legal templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Can Be Used For All Website Purposes: If your website is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers that pertain to your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any that are not necessary.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides a number of great features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just some:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – The plugin will display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Content – If your website includes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), you can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your business from non-compliance issues.
- Records & Stores IP Addresses – The plugin records and stores the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to automatically populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the popups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor web browsers.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured gets added to your WordPress admin area.
Let’s briefly review these settings …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your business details can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Business Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to insert and display the information in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image 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” area includes a list of all of the templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of template pages made available by the Compliance Bar plugin last time we checked the 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can easily and quickly create legal pages for your blog or website by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
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: Compliance Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can edit and delete your legal templates in the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing the legal pages 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 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 home page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create several Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in other sections of your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using particular premium themes (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” WordPress 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 displays links to your compliance pages using a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance bar to show …
PopUps
If your website contains content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: 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 other sections of your website …
You can also set a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and record 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 must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
Compliance Bar lets you edit the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” tab …
(EU Cookies Screen: 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” section, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
User Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials that users have published about the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”I wanted to reach out & say Compliance Bar is a truly amazing product for keeping my online marketing efforts on the right side of the internet laws. Not only does it look fantastic on my sites, it is also intuitive and robustly powerful. It is packed full of features to allow me the flexibility to control exactly what my visitors need to see and know” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Useful Tips
Here are a few extra ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you have content for adult viewers on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated plugin support team to assist users if they experience any difficulties. Plugin users also have access to full video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 day, 200% money-back 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 Site Licensing – Can be installed on a single site. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Can be installed on twenty-five of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Licensing – Can be installed on all of your own sites. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Pricing for this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the product sells for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price set by the product seller when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing information here: Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar – Additional Info
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for peace of mind.
For demo videos of the plugin in action, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support 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-powered websites. 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: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this 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 in your country or region.
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