One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of having broken a law or regulation.
Your digital presence has to comply with a whole range of federal, state and even local laws and regulations, some of which you may not be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering 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 easy-to-install solution for WordPress users that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules keep changing, it’s important 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 web presence is a fundamental aspect of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social sites will suspend your apps, and you won’t be allowed into many advertising and merchant networks.
If your website is not in compliance, you could also end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your website is not in compliance, it may affect your visitors trust and confidence in doing future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer 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 federal, state and local laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to be compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or endorsing online, and
- There are plugins for WordPress website owners that can help your site become compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
In this article, you will learn about a total compliance & disclaimer plugin for your WordPress-based website.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use plugin for WordPress users containing over 20 customizable compliance templates for your online presence …
For more details go here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your site instantly compliant:
Installation Is Easy & Simple
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like any regular WP plugin. Simply upload a zip file containing the plugin to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Editable Compliance Page Templates
Easily make changes to the pre-built compliance templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress visual editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support Team
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated team to help you.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Legal Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a complete library of training videos is provided.
- 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 templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use On All WordPress Sites: If your website is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any templates that are irrelevant.
Features
Compliance Bar provides many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Compliance Bar displays links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Content – If your website includes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – 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. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your site from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – The plugin records and stores the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes that populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor web browsers.
Using The Plugin
Once the plugin is installed, users get access to a number of settings pages.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your business details can be entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Contact Phone,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to insert and display the information you’ve inputted into your User Profile fields inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section contains all of the plugin’s templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the full 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 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 easily and quickly create compliance pages for your website simply by selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – 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 default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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: Compliance Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can customize and delete your legal disclaimers in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. legal pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, 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 front page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: 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 a range of uses in different sections of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using particular 3rd-party themes (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, there is a limit to the number of page icons you can display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have specified your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your legal through a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance icons to show …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create multiple Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in different areas of your site …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing 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 EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance requirements …
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” 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 compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
Testimonials From Users
Here are a couple of the testimonials that plugin customers have published about the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”I got a chance to review the Compliance Bar plugin…WOW!! I have to say that its definitely one of the most NECESSARY, yet easiest to use plugin’s to hit the scene in a while. Very Solid Product. Great job Anton & team!” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”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)
Useful Tips
Below are some useful ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages of your site.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site contains content that is deemed inappropriate for persons below a certain age, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated plugin support to help you. Plugin users also get access to a complete library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 hrs (M – F), your money will be refunded in double.
Product Cost
- Single – Install the plugin on one domain that you own. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on twenty-five of your own sites. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License – Install the plugin on all as many of your own domains as you like. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The cost of purchasing the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the product is selling for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual price set by the software author when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Additional Plugin Information
Legal Page Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading 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 a demo video of the plugin, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
The Bottom Line
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered sites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website. 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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