One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect the rights of consumers, 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 easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress users that can help make your website legally compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital realm continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules keep changing, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your online presence is an essential aspect of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social sites could suspend your web apps, and you won’t be accepted into most leading advertising and merchant networks.
You could 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 website complies with all legal requirements and guidelines, it may affect your visitors trust and confidence about doing future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with compulsory federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to be compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or endorsing online, and
- There are solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your website become compliant, such as the solution that we review in this article.
If you suspect that your web site is lacking in areas of compliance, here is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs you should know more about.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar WordPress Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your online business …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Below are just some of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website compliant:
Ready To Use In Very Little Time
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like every other plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Easily Editable Compliance Page Templates
You can easily modify the prebuilt compliance page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist users.
Some additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Compliance Templates: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - an entire library of training videos is available.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Can Be Used For All Website Purposes: As long as your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any pages that are not required.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides a number of features to website owners. Here are just some of those:
- Fast and simple to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – The plugin will display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Information – If your site has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your site from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records 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 automatically populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the web browser being used.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, you will then get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where you can input your business details into input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to automatically populate the information from your User Profile fields inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of the plugin’s compliance template pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of legal templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin last time we checked the site:
- 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can create legal pages for your website quite easily simply by selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button in the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in 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 theme …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can easily modify and delete your compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Page 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 you installed 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, selecting which pages to include an icon for in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your front page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and more …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different icons on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in different areas of your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using a specific theme (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 normal “static” 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 through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance icons to show …
PopUps
If your site has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display popups that restricts access to users who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your website …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and even record 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 your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws …
Compliance Bar lets you manage the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” screen …
(EU Cookies Section: 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” tab, lists all of your legal pages and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Testimonials
Here are a few of the testimonials that customers have provided for the 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
Plugin Tips
Below are a few useful ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your website published content that is deemed inappropriate for underaged viewers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated support team to assist users. Plugin users also get access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 (M – F), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Product Licensing Price
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on one domain that you own. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License – Can be installed on all domains that you own. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The cost of purchasing the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the product retails for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the software seller when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing information: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar – Additional Info
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading 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 of the plugin in action, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Get The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered sites. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Note: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law in your country or region.
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