One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your internet presence must comply with a number of laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring financial loss, 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 cost-effective WordPress solution that can help make your site fully compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules constantly change, it’s important that you stay on top of 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 fundamental aspect of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you will not be accepted into a range of leading advertising or merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits or legal action.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your site complies with legal requirements and guidelines, it may impact on your visitors trust and confidence about doing 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 and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with mandatory 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 offering or using on your website, and
- There are inexpensive solutions that can help your site become compliant, such as the tool that we discuss in this post.
In this article, we review a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your WordPress-based site.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a simple and easy-to-use WordPress plugin with over twenty customizable compliance page templates for your online business …
More info: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Be Up And Running In No Time
Compliance Bar installs just like any other WordPress plugin. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Templates
You can easily make changes to the built-in legal templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support Team
The plugin developers provide a dedicated plugin support team to help you if you experience any issues.
Additional benefits of the plugin include the following:
- Customized 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 - an entire 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 templates provided in Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Use In All Niches: As long as your site is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any pages that are not required.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of great features to site owners. Here are just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed on different locations in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Content – If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies users and protects your business from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – The plugin can record and store your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – The plugin uses shortcodes that automatically populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor web browsers.
Using The Plugin
Once the Compliance Bar plugin has been installed, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured will be added to your WordPress backend.
Let’s briefly review these settings …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can input your information into input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” “Company Phone Number,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information from your User Profile fields into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: 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 areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area contains all of the plugin’s pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of template pages made available by the Compliance Bar plugin last time we checked the website:
- 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 legal pages for your blog or website can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – 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 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can easily modify and delete the compliance templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, specifying which pages to include an icon for 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, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create a number of Compliance Bars to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your site, even if you are using particular theme frameworks (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, 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 will display links to your legal through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance icons to show …
PopUps
If your site has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that blocks access to users who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create multiple Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your website …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display immediately, set cookie durations 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 sourced from 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 laws …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you edit 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 – 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” area, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
User Feedback
Here are a few of the testimonials and feedback customers have provided for the Compliance Bar plugin:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
***
”I wanted to reach out & say Compliance Bar is a truly amazing product for keeping my online marketing efforts on the right side of the internet laws. Not only does it look fantastic on my sites, it is also intuitive and robustly powerful. It is packed full of features to allow me the flexibility to control exactly what my visitors need to see and know” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Plugin Tips
Here are some additional ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you have content for adults only on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated support team to assist users with anything they need. You also get access to an entire library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% refund 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), the plugin developers will refund twice the amount of your cost of purchasing.
Product Pricing
- Single User Licensing – Can be installed on one domain that you own. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License Edition – Can be installed on multiple sites that you own. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: Current pricing for the Compliance Bar Plugin software can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing above was correct at the time this review was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the product site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Additional Info
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how-to” videos showing how the software works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Install This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven sites. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Legal 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 to ensure that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
***