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 a number of federal, state and even local laws and regulations, many of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering both financial losses and 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 WordPress solution that can help make your website legally compliant in minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s important to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your online presence is an essential aspect of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your apps, and you won’t be accepted into many advertising and merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your web properties comply with legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, trust and confidence in your business could become an issue.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business,
- The importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or endorsing online, and
- There are inexpensive plugins for WordPress users that can help your website become compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
If your website or blog is lacking in areas of compliance, here is a simple WordPress plugin you should know more about.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a simple and easy-to-use plugin for WordPress websites that contains over twenty customizable legal templates for your online presence …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website compliant:
Be Up And Running In Very Little Time
Compliance Bar Plugin is quite easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Editable Templates
You can easily make changes to the default legal templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated support team to help you.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - an entire library of training videos is provided if you need help.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: 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 wherever you are located.
- Can Be Used On All WordPress Sites: If your website is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers that suit your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any that are unnecessary.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar provides many features to WP users. Here are just some:
- Fast and simple to install and set up. Ready to go to work in very little time.
- Show Attractive Icon Bar – Display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Content – If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you are based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and protects your business from non-compliance issues.
- Records & Stores IP Addresses – The plugin records your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes to populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the popups).
- Works On Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Plugin Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, users will have access to various settings.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where your business details can be input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information you have input into your User Profile fields in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the user profile fields, users can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of your templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 legal pages available to WordPress users:
- 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
You can create legal pages for your website or blog quite easily simply by selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance 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 default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can easily customize and delete the compliance templates from the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing 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 position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, specifying 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create an unlimited number of Compliance Bars to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in other sections of your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using particular theme frameworks (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” 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 configured your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your legal through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance bar to be featured …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover various uses in different sections of your site …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and even record 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 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 edit the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” tab …
(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 modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Below are just a few of the testimonials and comments customers have submitted regarding the Compliance Bar 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)
***
”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 Tips
Below are some additional ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your website contains content for adult viewers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help users. You also have access to an entire set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 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 hrs (Monday to Friday), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Product Price
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on a single site. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Install the plugin on up to 25 of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Can be installed on multiple of your own domains. Can be installed on any client site as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Current pricing for the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the product is being retailed for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the product author when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing: Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Additional Plugin Information
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 highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For a demo video showing how the software works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Download This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Note: 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 the law wherever your business is based.
***
