One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to be on the wrong side of 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 significant financial costs, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your website compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vitally important that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your online presence is an essential component of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and other social networks will suspend your applications, and you will not be accepted into a number of 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 online 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, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with mandatory federal, state and local laws and regulations that govern your business,
- The importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or using online, and
- There are inexpensive solutions for WordPress site owners that can help your website become compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss in this post.
If you suspect that your website falls short in terms of compliance, there is a simple WordPress plugin you should know more about.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-install plugin for WordPress users containing over twenty customizable legal page templates for your digital presence …
More info: Compliance Bar
Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your web site instantly compliant:
Quick And Simple To Install And Use. Ready To Use In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin is very easy to install. Simply upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Easily Editable Templates
Easily modify the prebuilt compliance templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist you.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Legal Pages: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a full library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the built-in legal templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Use For All Website Purposes: If your website or blog runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the templates you want to include in your site and ignore the unnecessary pages.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of features to WP users. Here are just some:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar will display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Restricted Information – If your website contains content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, 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 visitors and covering your business from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Addresses – The plugin can record the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes to populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the popups).
- Works On Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor web browsers.
Using The Plugin
Once the plugin has been installed, you get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s review these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where you can input your information into input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 compliance pages available for complying with online business laws and regulations:
- 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 compliance pages for your website or blog quite easily simply by selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
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: Legal Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can easily modify and delete your legal templates from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: 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. legal pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to show 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 more …
(Compliance Bar Screen: 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 throughout your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific theme framework (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), 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 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 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 to feature the compliance bar …
PopUps
If your site contains content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your site …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration 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 Screen: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
The 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” 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” area, lists all of your legal disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
User Testimonials
Here are just a few of the testimonials and comments customers have submitted regarding the Compliance Bar plugin:
”One of the most annoying parts about building out a site is to make sure it complies with the law. I always leave this part to the end because its painfully dry and boring and frankly I always just wished their was an easier way. Then I came across Compliance Bar and its literally the most versitile and brilliant plugin I have ever used. All my pages meet FTC requirements now and all I had to do was press a button! Anton and Jon..you guys friggen rock — 1000% highly recommend this!!” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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”You wouldn’t drive a car around without insurance…so don’t RISK your online business by neglecting a simple, but important detail: website compliance. Grab your copy of Compliance Bar & protect yourself today!” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Useful Tips
Below are some extra ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you publish content that is deemed inappropriate for minors on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated support team to assist users with anything they need. Plugin users also get access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty 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 business hours (Monday to Friday), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Plugin Price
- Single Site Licensing – Install the plugin on a single site. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License – Can be installed on multiple of your own sites. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: Pricing for the Compliance Bar Plugin product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the product sells for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual price set by the software developer when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here: Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Additional Plugin Info
Legal Pages 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 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 of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support 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-powered sites. We recommend downloading and 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 – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: Once again, 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 to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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