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 intended to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring significant financial losses, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the digital business realm continues growing at breakneck speed and rules constantly change, it’s vitally important to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your digital presence is an essential aspect of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social networks could suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed into a number of leading advertising and 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, without making it clear to your visitors that your website complies with legal requirements and guidelines, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with mandatory federal, state and local laws and regulations that govern your business,
- How important it is to remain compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using online, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress site owners that can help your website become compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss below.
If your web site lacks in areas of compliance, here is a simple plugin for WordPress users that you may be interested in using.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your site …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your website instantly compliant:
Fast Installation
Compliance Bar Plugin is really easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin area and activate.
Easy To Edit Legal Page Templates
You can easily make changes to the built-in templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated plugin support team to help users if they experience any issues.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Pages: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and an entire 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 legal page templates provided in 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: As long as your site runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers that suit your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out those that you don’t need.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of features to web site owners. Here are just some of these features:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in very little time.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Sensitive Content – If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you are based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and protects your business from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – The plugin records and stores your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the web browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Once the plugin is installed, the plugin’s “Settings” screen will be added to your WP backend.
Let’s review these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where your information can be entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate the information you’ve inputted into your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been input into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of legal templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last checked their site:
- 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 website quickly and easily by simply selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image source: 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 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: Legal Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily customize and delete your compliance pages in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: 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. legal pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, selecting 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 Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different icons on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using particular 3rd-party themes (e.g. 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” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile device screens, you can only select up to a certain number of page icons to display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have configured your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your legal using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature your compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover various uses in other sections of your site …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration 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 Screen: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
Compliance Bar 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” 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” area, lists all of your compliance disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Testimonials
Below are a few of the testimonials that users have written about Compliance Bar Plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Useful Tips
Below are some additional ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your website only.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If you publish content that is inappropriate for persons below a certain age on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated plugin support to assist users with anything they need. You also have access to an entire set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your version of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (M – F), the plugin developers will refund twice the cost of purchasing.
Software Cost
- Single – Install the plugin on a single domain. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Can be installed on up to twenty-five of your own sites. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Install the plugin on multiple of your own sites. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Price details for the Compliance Bar product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the price when this article was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the software developer when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Additional Info
Legal Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert 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 your own peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin in action, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Install The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Note: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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