One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your internet presence has to comply with numerous federal, state and even local laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering serious financial losses and the loss of 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 easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your site legally compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules constantly change, it’s important to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your web presence is a significant component of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you will not be accepted into many other advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could 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 web properties comply with all legal requirements and guidelines, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws and regulations that govern your business,
- How important it is to maintain compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or using online, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress users that can help your business become more compliant, such as the tool that we discuss below.
If you suspect that your website or blog lacks in aspects of compliance, here is a simple plugin for WordPress users that you may be interested in using.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your web presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your website instantly legally compliant:
Quick And Simple To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin is really easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Compliance Page Templates
You can easily make changes to the pre-built legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated support team to assist users with anything they need.
Some additional benefits include:
- Customized Legal Templates: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a complete library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: 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.
- Use On All WordPress Sites: If your website is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit 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.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar provides many features to WP users. Here are just some of these:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Ready to use in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Restricted Content – If your website includes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, 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 the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying visitors and covering your business from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records and stores the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that automatically populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the popups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Once the plugin is installed, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured gets added to your WP backend.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where you can enter your information into entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert and display the information entered into your User Profile fields into your legal 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” area includes a list of all of your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of template pages made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last checked their 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
- XXX Disclosure
Creating compliance pages for your website or blog can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button on the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons are customizable. You can purchase an additional set of icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily customize and delete your compliance disclaimers from the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing 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 settings area provides various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to show links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, selecting which pages should be included 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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, even if you are using a specific 3rd-party theme (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, 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 displays links to your legal using a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance bar to show …
PopUps
If your site contains content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other areas of your website …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want the Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and even record 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 your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
The Compliance Bar 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” screen …
(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” area, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
User Feedback
Here are just some testimonials and comments that users have published about 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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”You wouldn’t drive a car around without insurance…so don’t RISK your online business by neglecting a simple, but important detail: website compliance. Grab your copy of Compliance Bar & protect yourself today!” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Plugin Tips
Below are a few extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your site includes content for adult readers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated team to help you if you experience any problems. Plugin users also get access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% refund 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 purchasing price.
Software Cost
- Single User License – Install the plugin on one site that you own. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on twenty-five of your own sites. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Licensing – Install the plugin on all of your own domains. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The cost of purchasing this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the product is being retailed for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the software seller when you visit the plugin website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing here: Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For demo videos of the plugin, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Install This 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 full details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer 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 the law in your country or region.
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