One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your website or blog must comply with a wide range of federal, state and even local laws, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
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 business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and very inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
As the cybersphere continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules are constantly changing, it’s vitally important to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your digital presence is a significant component of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social sites will suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed into various advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If your digital presence is not compliant, you could also end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your business online is not compliant, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: 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 various legal requirements in accordance with mandatory 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 are promoting or endorsing online, and
- There are easy-to-install solutions that can help your business become compliant, such as the tool that we discuss below.
In this article, you will learn about a complete compliance and disclaimer plugin for a WordPress-based digital presence.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a simple and easy-to-install plugin for WordPress-driven sites containing over twenty customizable compliance disclaimers for your digital presence …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website instantly legally compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In Very Little Time.
Compliance Bar is very easy to install. Simply upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your admin area and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Compliance Page Templates
You can easily edit the prebuilt legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the visual content editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help users with anything they need.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Page Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - an entire library of training videos is available.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the default legal page templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use For All Niches: If your site is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers that suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any templates that are unnecessary.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of features to web site owners. Below we have listed just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Ready to use in very little time.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Information – If your website has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is 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. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering you from non-compliance issues.
- Records & Stores IP Addresses – The plugin records the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes that automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the popups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, users will then have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where your business details can be input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Registered Company Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Image source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to insert and display the information into your page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the profile fields, you can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of the plugin’s templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 22 compliance pages available:
- 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
Creating compliance pages for your site is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button in the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of 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 Plugin: Compliance Page Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily modify and delete the compliance page templates in the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Templates – Image sourced from 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. pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides 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 home page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and more …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create unlimited Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses in different sections of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), 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 through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature your compliance bar …
PopUps
If your site has content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), you can display pop-ups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create unlimited Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your website …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display immediately, 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 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 must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
The 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” section …
(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” section, lists all of your legal disclaimers and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
Testimonials From Users
Below are some of the testimonials customers have submitted regarding Compliance Bar:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Compliance Bar – Useful Tips
Here are a few useful ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you include content that is considered inappropriate for persons below a certain age on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated team to assist you if you experience any problems. Plugin users also have access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 day, 200% refund guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund twice your purchasing price.
Product Cost
- Single Site License – Install the plugin on a single site. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on up to 25 of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License – Can be installed on all domains that you own. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The cost of purchasing the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the pricing when this content was written. This may not be the actual pricing set by the software author when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here: Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Additional Plugin Info
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how to” videos showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Get This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Disclaimer: Once again, 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 the law wherever your business is based.
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