One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering financial losses, but also the cost to 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 site legally compliant in minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues growing at breakneck speed and rules are constantly changing, it’s vital to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your web presence is a fundamental aspect of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend your apps, and you will not be allowed into many other advertising or merchant networks.
If your business online is not compliant, you could face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
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, almost all 3rd-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 could be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with compulsory federal, state or local laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to maintain compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or endorsing on your website, and
- There are easy-to-install solutions that can help your site become compliant, such as the plugin that we review in this article.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress users that provides a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital business.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
To learn more about the plugin go here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your web site compliant:
Easy Installation
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like every plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin account and activate.
Easy To Edit Legal Page Templates
Easily modify the pre-built compliance page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the visual content editor.
Dedicated Support
The plugin develop provides a dedicated plugin support team to assist you if you experience any issues.
Additional benefits of this plugin include the following:
- Customized Compliance Page Templates: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and a complete library of training videos is available.
- 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 built-in legal page templates provided in Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use On All WordPress Sites: As long as your website or blog runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers that suit your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any templates that you don’t require.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar offers many great features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in no time.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Sensitive Content – If you plan to display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), you can display popups that force users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you are based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and protects you from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the browser being used.
Plugin Features – Details
After installing and activating the plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” section will be added to your WP admin area.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your business details can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information entered into your User Profile fields in your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the user profile fields, you can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section contains all of the plugin’s compliance pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of legal templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last checked their website:
- 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 check boxes and clicking ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of attractive 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 theme …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can easily modify and delete the legal templates in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing the legal pages 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 you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, 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 front page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create several Compliance Bars to display different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other areas of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific WordPress theme framework (e.g. 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” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile screens, 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 will display links to your compliance pages through a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature the compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that should 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 terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section lets you fully customize 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 different uses throughout your website …
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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
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 …
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” area …
(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” tab, lists all of your legal page templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify 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 …
Feedback From Users
Below are just some testimonials that plugin users have written about Compliance Bar:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
***
”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Useful Tips
Below are a few extra ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- End 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 access your content.
Compliance Bar Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated plugin support to assist users if they experience any issues. You also have access to a complete library of training videos.
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 hrs (M – F), your money will be refunded in double.
Software Price
- Single Site Licensing – Install the plugin on 1 site that you own. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Install the plugin on up to 25 of your own sites. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License – Install the plugin on all sites that you own. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The cost to purchase the Compliance Bar product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin is selling for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the software seller when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current price: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how to” videos showing how the software works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support 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-driven websites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Disclaimer: 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 fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
***
