One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your internet presence has to comply with a whole set of laws and regulations, some of which you may not be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering financial losses, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress users that can help make your website fully compliant in minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules constantly change, it’s vitally important that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your online presence is an essential aspect of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces 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 and many other social networks could suspend your apps, and you will not be accepted into a range of other advertising or merchant networks.
If your web presence is not compliant, you could end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your online presence is not compliant, it may affect your visitors trust and confidence about doing any future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use!)
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 compulsory 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 are offering or endorsing on your website, and
- There are plugins for WordPress users that can help your business become more compliant, such as the solution that we review in this article.
If your website falls short in areas of compliance, we review below a simple WordPress plugin you may be interested in using.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-install and simple-to-use WordPress plugin that includes over twenty customizable legal pages for your digital business …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar
Here we have listed just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website or blog legally compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Use. Ready To Start Using In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like any plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easily Editable Page Templates
You can easily edit the built-in legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated support team to assist users if they experience any problems.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Templates: Compliance Bar 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 - an entire library of training videos is available.
- Use In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the default legal page 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 For Every Website Purpose: If your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the pages you need to include in your site and ignore the irrelevant pages.
Features
Compliance Bar offers many unique features to site owners. Below we have listed just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Sensitive Content – If your website contains content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that force users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you are based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your site from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes that populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (even in the popups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor mobile browsers.
Using Compliance Bar
After installing and activating the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured is added to your WP admin area.
Let’s briefly review these areas …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where you can input your business details into entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Company Phone Number,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of the plugin’s pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last checked their website:
- 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
Creating legal pages for your website can be easily done. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” in the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar icons can be changed. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can easily edit and delete your legal templates from the “Compliance Pages” section, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing 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 you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon 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, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover different 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 (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” 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 configured your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your compliance pages using dynamic 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 website includes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that force users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create several Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover different uses in other areas of your website …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying 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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements …
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” area …
(EU Cookies Screen: 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 compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Testimonials From Plugin Customers
Here are just a few of the testimonials and feedback plugin users have provided for Compliance Bar:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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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)
Compliance Bar – Useful Tips
Below are some useful ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If you have content that is considered 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
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist you. Plugin users also have access to a complete library of training videos.
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 hours (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of your cost of purchase.
Plugin Pricing
- Single License Edition – Can be installed on 1 of your own sites. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Licensing – Can be installed on multiple as many of your own sites as you need. Can be installed on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost of purchasing the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the software retails for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin seller when you visit the 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 – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Additional Information
Templates Reviewed 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 own peace of mind.
For ”how-to” videos showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Our Recommendation
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress 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 – Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no 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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