One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your digital presence needs to comply with various federal, state and even local laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring both financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and easy-to-use WordPress solution that can help make your website fully compliant in minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
As the digital business realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules keep changing, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your online presence is a significant part of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social networks will suspend your applications, and you won’t be accepted into a range of advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could also end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your business online is not compliant, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business,
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using online, and
- There are easy-to-use solutions that can help your website become more compliant, such as the tool that we discuss below.
If your web site falls short in aspects of compliance, there is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs that you may be interested in knowing more about.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-install WordPress plugin that contains over twenty customizable compliance page templates for your web presence …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Below are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to make your site instantly compliant:
Quick And Simple To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar is quite easy to install. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Legal Page Templates Are Really Easy To Edit
You can easily make changes to the default templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress visual editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support Team
The plugin develop provides dedicated plugin support to assist users.
Additional benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Pages: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and a full library of training videos is available if users need assistance.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used For Any Website Purpose: As long as your website is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Just select the compliance pages you need to include in your site and ignore any irrelevant pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many great features to site owners. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Information – If your site publishes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business 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 displays an attractive bar notifying visitors and covering your site from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – The plugin can record and store the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes that populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
Once you have installed the plugin, you will then get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s go through these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where you can input your business information into entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Business Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to dynamically populate and display the information from your User Profile fields inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of the legal pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 20 legal templates made available:
- 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
You can create legal pages for your website quickly and easily simply by selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button on the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
Icons can be changed. You can purchase an additional set of 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 Page Templates
You can customize and delete your legal disclaimer templates in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, icon 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 – 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 multitude of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, 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 “regular” 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 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 your compliance bar to be featured …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you complete control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: 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 different sections of your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and even record 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 you do business in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
The plugin lets you manage the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” area …
(EU Cookies Section: 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 legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
Feedback From Users
Here are just some testimonials plugin customers have submitted regarding the Compliance Bar 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)
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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
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Here are a few useful ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you include content for adult readers 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 a dedicated team to assist users if they experience any issues. Users also have access to an entire library 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 business hours (Monday to Friday), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Software Pricing
- Single License Edition – Install the plugin on one of your own domains. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Install the plugin on 25 of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License Edition – Install the plugin on multiple of your own sites. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please 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 pricing at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product developer when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing: Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Additional Information
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get professional 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, customer help desk, 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 sites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin
Note: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.
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