One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering significant financial losses, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and cost-effective WordPress solution that can help make your website compliant in minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your web presence is an integral component of your business strategy.
Without 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 will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social sites could suspend your apps, and you will not be allowed into a range of leading advertising or merchant networks.
If your online business is not in compliance, you could also end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your business online is not in compliance, it could affect your visitors trust and confidence in doing business with you in the future.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws and regulations that govern your business,
- The importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or using on your website, and
- There are solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your website become compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
In this article, we review a simple WordPress plugin that provides a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your online business.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your online presence …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website compliant:
Installation Is Easy, Fast And Simple
Compliance Bar Plugin is quite easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP admin area and activate.
Easy To Edit Legal Page Templates
Easily make changes to the default templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
The plugin develop provides a dedicated team to help users with anything they need.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Compliance Page Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a full library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the built-in legal templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used On All WordPress Sites: If your site is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the legal pages you want to include in your site and ignore all other irrelevant pages.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of great features to WordPress users. Here are just a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icon Bar – Display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Content – If your website has content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and protects your website from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores 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 otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin 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 pop-ups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the web browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Once the Compliance Bar plugin has been installed, you will get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s briefly review these pages …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your information can be entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Company Address,” “Location Details,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to automatically populate and display the information from your User Profile in your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of the legal pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of template pages made available by the 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 compliance pages for your website is a simple process. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button on the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
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: Compliance Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily modify and delete the legal pages from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing the compliance pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin will notify you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, specifying which pages should be included 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create unlimited Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your site.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific theme framework (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 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 specified your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your legal using a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance bar to display …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover a range of uses in different sections of your site …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want the Pop Ups to display immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and 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 Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
The plugin lets you edit the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” tab …
(EU Cookies Screen: Manage Settings – Image 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 disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit 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 update notifications …
Feedback From Plugin Customers
Below are a few of the testimonials and comments users have published about the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”I got a chance to review the Compliance Bar plugin…WOW!! I have to say that its definitely one of the most NECESSARY, yet easiest to use plugin’s to hit the scene in a while. Very Solid Product. Great job Anton & team!” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Here are a few extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your website published adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated support team to assist users with anything they need. Plugin users also have access to an entire set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 200% refund guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (M – F), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Plugin Cost
- Single User Personal License – Can be installed on a single site. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Can be installed on twenty-five sites that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Can be installed on multiple of your own domains. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The cost to purchase Compliance Bar Plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing above was correct when this article was published. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the product 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
Additional Information
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For demo videos showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Get This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites and blogs. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
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 in your country or region.
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