One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering financial costs, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and cost-effective WordPress solution that can help make your website compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules keep changing, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your digital presence is an essential part of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social networks could suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed into a number of leading advertising and merchant networks.
If your online business is not in compliance, you could also 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 site complies with legal requirements and regulations, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business,
- The importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or using on your website, and
- There are plugins for WordPress website owners that can help your site become compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
If your web site lacks in terms of compliance, there is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites that you should know more about.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-install plugin for WordPress users containing over twenty customizable legal disclaimers for your digital business …
For more details go here: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your site legally compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Implement. Ready To Start Using In No Time.
Compliance Bar is really easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Easily Editable Templates
Easily make changes to the default templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress visual editor.
Dedicated Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated support to assist you.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Legal Templates: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a full 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 ascertain if the legal templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Use In All Niches: As long as your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the pages you want to add to your site and leave out unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and implement. Ready to use in very little time.
- Show Attractive Icons – Display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Content – If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU 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 displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and protects you from non-compliance.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records and stores your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – The plugin 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 pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – 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, you will get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where your business details can be entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Business Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been input into the user profile fields, you can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of your legal template pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of template pages made available by the Compliance Bar plugin last time we 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
- XXX Disclosure
Creating compliance pages for your blog or website is a simple process. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button in the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your site.
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 additional 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 Legal Templates
You can easily edit and delete the compliance disclaimers in the “Compliance Pages” section, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin will notify you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides many 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 to include an icon for 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 source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create multiple Compliance Bars to display different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses in other areas of your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your site, even if you are using particular 3rd-party themes (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 screens, 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 will display links to your compliance pages 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 display …
PopUps
If your site contains content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that force users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create unlimited customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in different sections of your website …
You can also set a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying 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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
The Compliance Bar plugin 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” area …
(EU Cookies Screen: 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 legal pages and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Feedback
Here are some of the testimonials and comments plugin customers have provided for Compliance Bar Plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Plugin Tips
Here are a few useful ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages of your site.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If you have content that is considered inappropriate for minors on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated plugin support to help you if you experience any problems. Users also get access to full video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty 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 business hours (Monday to Friday), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Software Price
- Single User Personal License – Install the plugin on one of your own domains. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Install the plugin on twenty-five of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License Edition – Can be installed on all domains that you own. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: The price of Compliance Bar can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing shown above was current when this review was published. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin seller when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price: Compliance Bar Plugin
Additional Plugin Info
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
In Conclusion
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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