One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
Your website must comply with a number of federal, state and even local laws and regulations, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring serious 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 review 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 internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules constantly change, it’s vitally important that you stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is a fundamental component 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, earning disclaimers, etc.), many 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 could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social sites will suspend your apps, and you won’t be allowed into most other advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could also end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, without making it very clear to your visitors that your online properties comply with legal requirements and guidelines, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or endorsing in your website, and
- There are solutions that can help your site become compliant, such as the tool that we review in this article.
In this article, we review a simple plugin for WordPress users that provides a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your site …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to make your website instantly legally compliant:
Installation Is Easy, Simple And Quick
Compliance Bar Plugin is quite easy to install. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Editable Templates
Easily modify the built-in compliance page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated support to help you if you experience any issues.
Additional benefits of the plugin include:
- Customized Legal Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a full library of training videos is provided.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if 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.
- Can Be Used For All Niches: If your site is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the templates you need to add to your site and leave out any unnecessary pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides a number of great features to WordPress users. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be placed anywhere in your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Information – If your website publishes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies users and protects your business from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case someone 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 site, (even in the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the web browser being used.
Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” area will be added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s briefly review these pages …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can input your business information into input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Registered Address,” “Location Details,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to dynamically insert the information in your page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been entered into the user profile fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen contains all of the legal template pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of legal templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin last time we checked the 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 site 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” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – 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 …
Icons are customizable. 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: Compliance Page Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can easily customize and delete your compliance pages in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing your compliance templates is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting 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 Screen: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different icons on different pages, or to cover various uses in other areas of your website.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your site, even if you are using a specific theme framework (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” 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 using a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance icons to display …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your site …
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 appearing again within a specific time interval, and capture 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 visitors in the EU, 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” tab …
(EU Cookies Screen: 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” section, lists all of your compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Users
Below are some of the testimonials and comments that customers have published about the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Below are some extra ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your site contains adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated support to assist users. You also get access to an entire set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty 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 (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double your cost of purchasing.
Plugin Pricing
- Single Site Personal License – Install the plugin on a single site. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Can be installed on up to twenty-five sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License Edition – Can be installed on all of your own sites. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Current pricing for this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price shown above was correct at the time this article was published. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product author when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal page 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 showing how the plugin works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
In Conclusion
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven sites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
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 the law in your country or region.
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