One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering serious financial losses, but also 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 cost-effective WordPress solution that can help make your website compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
As the digital business realm continues growing at breakneck speed and rules constantly change, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is a significant component of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, 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 close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social sites could suspend your web apps, and you will not be accepted into many other advertising or merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being slapped with a lawsuit.
At the very least, without making it very clear to your visitors that your website complies with legal requirements and regulations, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with mandatory federal, state and local laws that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- How important it is to be compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or endorsing in your website, and
- There are plugin-based solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your site become compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss in this post.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs that provides a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your site.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your site …
Go here to learn more about the plugin: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Ready To Go To Work In Minutes
Compliance Bar installs like every WP plugin. Simply upload a zip folder that contains the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Easy To Edit Templates
Easily edit the prebuilt compliance page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated plugin support team to assist you.
Some additional benefits of this plugin include:
- Customized Compliance Page Templates: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a complete library of training videos is available.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the legal templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use In All Niches: As long as your site is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers that pertain to your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any templates that are unnecessary.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many unique features to WP users. Below we have listed just some:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Ready to start using in very little time.
- Show Attractive Icon Bar – Compliance Bar will display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Content – If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that force users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU compliance laws. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your site from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record and store your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that automatically populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the mobile browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
After installing and activating the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured will be added to your WP backend.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where you can input your business information into entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Address,” “Location Details,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to populate the information in your page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been input into the profile fields, users can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area contains all of the compliance pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
When we last checked the plugin website, there were over 20 compliance templates available to plugin 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 easily create compliance pages for your website or blog by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button on the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: 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 comes with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons are customizable. You can purchase an additional set of icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can modify and delete your compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Templates – Image 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. 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, image size, selecting which pages should be included in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your main page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using particular themes (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” 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 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 display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), you can display popups that restricts access to users who do not accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying 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 – 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 …
Compliance Bar 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 – Image 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” section, lists all of your compliance pages and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
User Testimonials
Here are a few of the testimonials and comments plugin users have provided for 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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”If you are like me, you maybe have quite a few WordPress sites, all needing attention and most importantly, all needing to be on the right side of the law! I’ve tried several legal pages plugins and in pretty much every case, they let me down. They simply cause more work than they solve.To me, the answer should be simple. It should work and it should let me get on with building my site. After all, I know I NEED to do this stuff, but hey, I don’t really WANT to! So, for me, I don’t want those plugins that cause more work than they solve. Simple eh? Well now it is because Anton & John have just created this baby that is the answer to my needs. The Compliance Bar Plugin does what I need it to do then lets me get on with my empire building…Perfect!” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Useful Tips
Below are a few useful ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your website contains content that is considered inappropriate for persons below a certain age, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated plugin support team to help you. Plugin users also have access to an entire library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% refund guarantee. If your edition of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of your cost of purchase.
Plugin Cost
- Single Site Personal License – Install the plugin on 1 site that you own. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Can be installed on up to 25 of your own sites. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Can be installed on all of your own domains. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Current pricing for the Compliance Bar software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price above was current at the time this review was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the software seller when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current price here: Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Pages Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
What We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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