One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of breaking a law or regulation.
Your digital presence must comply with many federal, state and even local laws and regulations, many of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering both financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your website fully compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your web presence is a fundamental part of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed into a range of other advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
If you are not compliant, you could also end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your digital presence is not compliant, trust and confidence in your business could seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with mandatory federal, state or local laws that govern your business (some of which you may probably 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 online, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress users that can help your business become more compliant, such as the tool that we discuss in this article.
In this article, you will learn about a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for a WordPress-based digital business.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-use plugin for WordPress users containing over 20 customizable compliance templates for your digital presence …
Learn more about the plugin here: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your site compliant:
Quick And Simple To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In No Time.
Compliance Bar Plugin is very easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP admin account and activate.
Legal Page Templates Are Easy To Edit
Easily edit the pre-built compliance page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress visual editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated plugin support team to assist users with anything they need.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Templates: The Compliance Bar 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 and a complete library of training videos is available.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the default legal templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Use For All Niches: If your website or blog is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the templates you need to include in your site and leave out the unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just some:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Ready to go to work in no time.
- Display Attractive Icons – The plugin displays links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed on different locations in your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Information – If your site publishes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you are based in the EU 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 plugin displays an attractive bar notifying your visitors and covering your site from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin can record your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes that automatically 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).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
After installing and activating the plugin, you will then have access to various sections where you can configure the plugin’s settings.
Let’s go through these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where you can input your business details into input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” “Location Details,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to insert and display the information from your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been entered into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen contains all of the plugin’s pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of template pages made available by the plugin last time we 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 or blog is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button on the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of 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 Plugin: Legal Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can customize and delete the compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing your compliance pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin will notify you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides many 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 more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create an unlimited number of Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in other sections of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using particular themes (e.g. 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 device 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 displays links to your legal through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance icons to be featured …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that blocks access to users who do not accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website …
You can also set a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and store 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 you are based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you customize the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” area …
(EU Cookies Screen: 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” screen, lists all of your compliance disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Users
Here are a few of the testimonials and feedback that customers have written about Compliance Bar Plugin:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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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)
Plugin Tips
Below are a few useful ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your website includes content for adult viewers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated support team to help you with anything you need. Plugin users also get access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your version of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (Monday to Friday), your money will be refunded in double.
Software Price
- Single User License – Install the plugin on a single domain. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on up to 25 domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License Edition – Install the plugin on all domains that you own. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The cost of purchasing the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current price at the time this review was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the software seller when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing information here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert 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 to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how to” videos of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
The Bottom Line
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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