One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your internet presence must comply with a whole set of laws, some of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering significant financial loss, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress users that can help make your website legally compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules keep changing, it’s important that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if your online presence is an essential aspect of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you won’t be accepted into most other advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
Plus, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your website complies with all legal requirements and regulatory 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 policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws that govern your business,
- The importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or using online, and
- There are solutions that can help your business become more compliant, such as the plugin that we review in this post.
In this article, you will learn about a total compliance and disclaimer solution for a WordPress-based online presence.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your online business …
For more details go here: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your web site compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Use. Ready To Start Using In Very Little Time.
Compliance Bar is quite easy to install. Simply upload a zip file containing the plugin to your Plugin folder via your admin account and activate.
Editable Page Templates
Easily make changes to the built-in templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the visual content editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist you with anything you need.
Some additional benefits of this plugin include:
- Customized Templates: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and an entire library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used 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 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 Every Website Purpose: If your website is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the templates you need to include in your site and ignore the unnecessary pages.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar offers many features to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Fast and simple 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 positioned anywhere on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Content – If your website contains content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – 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 plugin displays an attractive bar notifying your users and covering your site from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin records and stores your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Using The Plugin
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” screen is added to your WP backend.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your business information can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Contact Phone,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Image source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile into your page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the profile fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of the templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 22 legal page templates available to plugin users:
- 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
Creating compliance pages for your site is a simple process. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button in the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar icons are customizable. 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 Page Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can customize and delete the compliance disclaimers from the “Compliance Pages” section, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing your compliance pages 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
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, 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 source: 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 in different sections of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using particular premium theme frameworks (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is specifically 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 using a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature your compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that blocks access to users who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other areas of your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing 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 you do business in the EU 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 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 – 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” screen, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify 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 update notifications …
Feedback From Plugin Users
Below are a couple of the testimonials that plugin users have published about Compliance Bar Plugin:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Plugin Tips
Here are some additional ways you can 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.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If you publish content for adults only on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated plugin support team to help users. You also have access to complete video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 200% refund guarantee. If your version of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund twice your purchasing price.
Product Cost
- Single License Edition – Can be installed on a single site that you own. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Can be installed on up to twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Install the plugin on all sites that you own. Can be installed on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Current pricing for the Compliance Bar Plugin product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the product is selling for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual price set by the product author when you visit the product 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 Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For ”how to” videos showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Get The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven sites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that 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 of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
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