One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of breaking a law or regulation.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering serious 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 very inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your site compliant in minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules constantly change, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your web presence is a significant aspect of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social networks will suspend your applications, and you will not be accepted into most advertising and merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits.
At the very least, if you are not compliant, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
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 could be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with mandatory federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- The importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or using on your website, and
- There are easy-to-use solutions that can help your site become compliant, such as the tool that we discuss below.
If your website or blog falls short in aspects of compliance, below we review a simple plugin for WordPress-powered sites that you will probably be interested in knowing more about.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a simple and easy-to-install plugin for WordPress sites containing over twenty customizable legal page templates for your digital presence …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like every plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your WP admin login and activate.
Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
You can easily modify the pre-built templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support Team
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated plugin support team to help users.
Some additional benefits of this plugin include the following:
- Customized Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a complete library of training videos is available if you need help.
- Use In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the default 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.
- Can Be Used On All WordPress Sites: As long as your website is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the pages you want to add to your site and leave out any irrelevant pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers many features to site owners. Here are just some:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icon Bar – The plugin will display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Content – If your website includes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance requirements. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and covers your site from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes to populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the popups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor web browsers.
Plugin Features – Details
Once you have installed the plugin, users will then get access to various settings.
Let’s briefly review these sections …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where you can enter your information into entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Location Details,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to dynamically populate and display the information you’ve inputted into your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area contains all of the plugin’s templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
When we last checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 20 compliance page templates available:
- 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can easily create compliance pages for your website or blog by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: 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 attractive 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 Plugin: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can customize and delete your compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” section, just like any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from 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. compliance pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to show links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting which pages to include an icon for in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your front 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 unlimited Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in different sections of your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your site, even if you are using a specific theme (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, 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 appealing icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance bar to appear …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create multiple Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover different uses in different sections of your website …
You can also set 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 capture 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 manage 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” screen, lists all of your legal page templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
User Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials and feedback plugin customers have submitted for the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Plugin Tips
Below are some useful ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your site contains content for adults only, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist users. Plugin users also have access to complete video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 business hours (Monday to Friday), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Plugin Price
- Single – Can be installed on one site that you own. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on up to 25 of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Can be installed on multiple of your own sites. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The cost to purchase the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the software sells for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin developer when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Additional Information
Legal Page Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading 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, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, 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 – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on this website. 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 wherever your business is based.
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