One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering serious financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress users that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s important that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your digital presence is an integral part of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like 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 could suspend your web applications, and you will not be accepted into most advertising or merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your site complies with legal requirements and regulations, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies!)
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 numerous legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local 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 offering or endorsing in your website, and
- There are easy-to-install solutions that can help your website become compliant, such as the solution that we discuss below.
In this article, you will learn about a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your online business.
Presenting …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital business …
For more details go here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website legally compliant:
Quick And Simple To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like every other plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your administrator section and activate.
Editable Legal Page Templates
You can easily modify the default legal page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG content editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist you with anything you need.
Some additional benefits of this plugin include:
- Customized Templates: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a complete library of training videos is provided if users need assistance.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the default 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 Website Purposes: If your site is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any pages that you don’t need.
Features
Compliance Bar provides many features to WordPress users. Here are just a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – The plugin displays links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Content – If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your website’s terms or 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 laws. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies your users and protects you from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes that populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the popups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor web browsers.
Using Compliance Bar
Once the plugin has been installed, users will get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s go through these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where your business details can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Image source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to automatically insert the information from your User Profile into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been input into the user profile fields, users can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen lists all of the templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 22 compliance pages available to WordPress users:
- 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
You can create compliance pages for your website or blog quickly and easily by simply selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of attractive 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can modify and delete the compliance pages from the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing 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
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, 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 offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create an unlimited number of Compliance Bars to display different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses in other areas of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using particular premium themes (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” 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 displays links to your compliance pages through a visually attractive 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 your site includes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create a number of customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover different uses in other areas of your site …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and capture 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 EU visitors, you must be aware of EU compliance laws …
Compliance Bar 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 – 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” area, lists all of your compliance templates 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 update notifications …
User Testimonials
Here are a few of the testimonials and feedback plugin customers have published about the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Useful Tips
Here are a few useful ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages of your website only.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site includes adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated support team to help you if you experience any issues. You also have access to a complete library 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 business hours (M – F), your money will be refunded in double.
Plugin Pricing
- Single Site Licensing – Install the plugin on one domain that you own. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on up to 25 sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Install the plugin on all as many of your own domains as you like. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Price details for the Compliance Bar product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the plugin is selling for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the product developer when you visit the 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 Page 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 highly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for peace of mind.
For demo videos showing how the plugin works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Our Recommendation
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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