One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of having broken the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring significant financial costs, but also the loss of 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 inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the digital business realm continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules are constantly changing, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your digital presence is an essential part of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social sites will suspend your applications, and you will not be accepted into most leading advertising and merchant networks.
If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your business online is not in compliance, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to be seriously damaged.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or endorsing online, and
- There are solutions that can help your website become more compliant, such as the solution that we discuss below.
If you suspect that your web site is lacking in aspects of compliance, we review below a simple WordPress plugin you will probably be very interested in knowing more about.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your online presence …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website or blog legally compliant:
Quick And Simple To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like any regular WordPress plugin. Simply upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WP administrator section and activate.
Easily Editable Page Templates
Easily modify the pre-built compliance page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin develop provides a dedicated team to assist users if they experience any difficulties.
Additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Pages: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a full library of training videos is provided if you 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 built-in legal page templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Use On All WordPress Sites: If your site is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the pages you need to include in your site and ignore the irrelevant pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers many unique features to site owners. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Compliance Bar will display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Information – If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you are based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying your visitors and covering your business from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Acceptance – The plugin records your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes to populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the popups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the web browser being used.
Plugin Features – Details
Once the plugin is installed, you get access to various settings.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where you can enter your business details into entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to dynamically populate the information from your User Profile into your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the user profile fields, you can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen contains all of the compliance templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of templates made available by the plugin when we last 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 compliance pages for your website or blog is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your site.
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 an additional set of 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 Compliance Pages
You can easily edit and delete the legal disclaimer templates from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing your legal pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance 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, image 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using particular 3rd-party theme frameworks (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is 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, you can only select up to a certain number of page icons to display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have configured your Compliance Bar settings, it will display 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 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, adult-related, etc.), you can display pop-ups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create multiple Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover various uses in other areas of your website …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying immediately, 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 Screen: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in Europe 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 …
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” area …
(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” section, lists all of your compliance disclaimers 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 getting plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials and feedback customers have submitted regarding Compliance Bar Plugin:
”When I got my hands on Compliance Bar, I knew I needed help to be compliant, but I had no idea how much danger I was in, nor did I know all of the different things I needed to be compliant. Once I installed Compliance Bar, I was able to very quickly add all the items I needed to ensure I didn’t end up getting fined by various agencies, or have my site pulled from Google. The best part is that getting it all set up took only minutes, and I know that I am far safer than I was. Compliance Bar is one of the best plugins I have used in a long time.” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”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
Useful Tips
Below are a few extra ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your website includes content for adults only, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help users. Users also have access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty 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), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Software Pricing
- Single Site License – Install the plugin on one of your own domains. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on up to 25 domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Can be installed on multiple domains that you own. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Pricing details of the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the software is being retailed for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin developer when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For a demo video showing how the plugin works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, 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-driven websites. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: 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 all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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