One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your digital presence needs to comply with numerous laws, many of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering serious financial loss, but also 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 inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules constantly change, it’s important that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your online presence is an essential aspect of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal 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 for sale, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and other social sites will suspend your web applications, and you will not be accepted into many leading advertising and merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
At the very least, if your online business is not in compliance, it could impact on your visitors trust and confidence about doing future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: 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 and local laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using in your website, and
- There are solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your site become more compliant, such as the tool that we review in this article.
If your website falls short in terms of compliance, here is a simple plugin for WordPress sites that you may be interested in knowing more about.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital business …
Go here to learn more about the plugin: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website instantly compliant:
Quick Installation
Compliance Bar Plugin is really easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP admin user account and activate.
Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
You can easily edit the built-in compliance templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress visual content editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated plugin support team to help you.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and an entire library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the built-in 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 pages you want to include in your site and ignore the irrelevant pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of features to site owners. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and implement. Ready to use in no time.
- Display Attractive Icons – The plugin will display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Content – If your site includes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU User 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 your site from non-compliance.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar can record your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes that populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the browser being used.
Using The Plugin
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured is added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s briefly review these sections …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where your business details can be input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Address,” “Location Details,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to insert the information inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area contains all of the plugin’s compliance template pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
When we last checked the plugin website, there were over 22 compliance page templates made 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
- XXX Disclosure
Creating compliance pages for your site can be easily done. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button on the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons can be changed. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can customize and delete the compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” screen, just like any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing your compliance pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. legal pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to show 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 main page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create unlimited Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover various 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 theme frameworks (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” 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 will display links to your compliance pages using a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature the compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your website …
You can also set 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 appearing again within a specific time interval, 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 your business is based in Europe 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 edit 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 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 compliance page 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 updates …
User Feedback
Here are a few of the testimonials users have written about Compliance Bar Plugin:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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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)
Useful Tips
Below are some extra ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If you include adult content on your website, 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 team to assist users if they experience any problems. Plugin users also get access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your edition of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (Monday to Friday), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Product Price
- Single – Install the plugin on a single site. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on up to twenty-five sites that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Licensing – Can be installed 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.
Please Note: Current pricing for this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current price at the time this article was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the product developer when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing information: Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Additional Plugin Information
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For a demo video showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Install The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites and blogs. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here. 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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