One of the worst things that can happen to any 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 puts you at risk of suffering significant financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your website fully compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your digital presence is a fundamental component of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and other social sites could suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed into a range of other advertising and merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being slapped with a lawsuit.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your online 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 third-party services require you to comply with their policies!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- The importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or endorsing online, and
- There are solutions that can help your website become more compliant, such as the plugin that we review in this article.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress users that provides a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your online presence.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website legally compliant:
Installation Is Easy & Simple
Compliance Bar installs just like any plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Page Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
You can easily make changes to the prebuilt legal templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG content editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated team to help you with anything you need.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a complete library of training videos is provided.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the default templates provided in Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used For All Niches: If your website is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the templates you need to include in your site and ignore the irrelevant pages.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many unique features to WordPress users. Here are just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icons – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Restricted Content – If your site includes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your site from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar can record and store your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes that populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the popups).
- Works On Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the web browser being used.
Using The Plugin
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured will be added to your WordPress dashboard.
Let’s review these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where you can input your business information into entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Company Address,” “Location Details,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to dynamically insert and display the information you have input into your User Profile into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of the plugin’s templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of templates made available by the plugin last time we checked the 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
- XXX Disclosure
Creating legal pages for your website or blog can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of attractive 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily edit and delete the compliance templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing 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 settings area provides various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to show 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, and more …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific WordPress theme (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” 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 configured your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your legal using a visually attractive 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 your site includes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), you can display popups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create multiple Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover different uses in other areas of your website …
You can also specify 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 capture 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 you are based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you manage the settings for compliance with EU User 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” section, lists all of your legal page templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Below are just some testimonials and comments plugin users have provided for the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”When I got my hands on Compliance Bar, I knew I needed help to be compliant, but I had no idea how much danger I was in, nor did I know all of the different things I needed to be compliant. Once I installed Compliance Bar, I was able to very quickly add all the items I needed to ensure I didn’t end up getting fined by various agencies, or have my site pulled from Google. The best part is that getting it all set up took only minutes, and I know that I am far safer than I was. Compliance Bar is one of the best plugins I have used in a long time.” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
***
”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
Here are a few additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your site.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If you include adult content on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated plugin support team to assist you if you experience any issues. You also get access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty 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 business hours (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of the purchasing price.
Plugin Price
- Single – Install the plugin on 1 of your own sites. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on up to twenty-five of your own sites. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Can be installed on multiple as many of your own domains as you like. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost of purchasing the Compliance Bar Plugin software can vary, depending 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 product seller when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing: Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Additional Plugin Information
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get 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, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Download This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here. You must 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.
***
