One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of breaking a law or regulation.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumer rights, 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 reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and cost-effective WordPress solution that can help make your website 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 vitally important that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is an essential aspect of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal 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 could suspend your apps, and you won’t be accepted into a range of other advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If your online presence is not compliant, you could face a multitude 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 site complies with legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws 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 online, and
- There are easy-to-use solutions that can help your business become compliant, such as the solution that we review below.
In this article, you will learn about a complete compliance and disclaimer plugin for a WordPress-based site.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your web presence …
Go here to learn more about the plugin: Compliance Bar
Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to make your site instantly legally compliant:
Ready To Go To Work In No Time
Compliance Bar is quite easy to install. Simply upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Compliance Page Templates Are Really Easy To Edit
You can easily edit the default compliance templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist users if they experience any difficulties.
Additional benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Page 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 full library of training videos is provided if users need help.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the built-in templates provided in 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: As long as your website or blog 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 unnecessary pages.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of great features to web site owners. Below we have listed just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Ready to start using in very little time.
- Show Attractive Icons – The plugin will display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on 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. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies users and covers your website from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar can record and store your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes to populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the pop-ups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Using The Plugin
Once the Compliance Bar plugin is installed, users will have access to a number of sections where you can configure the plugin’s settings.
Let’s go through these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where your business details can be input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to populate the information you’ve inputted into your User Profile in your page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the profile fields, users can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of the plugin’s pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
You can easily and quickly create compliance pages for your blog or website simply by selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can easily edit and delete the compliance page templates from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing your legal pages 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers 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 front page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses in other sections of your website.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your site, even if you are using particular themes (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), 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 configured your Compliance Bar settings, it displays 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 be featured …
PopUps
If your website includes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover different uses in other sections of your website …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying 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 sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements …
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” 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 templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials and feedback customers have written about the Compliance Bar plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” 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)
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Below are a few extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your website only.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If you have adult content on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated plugin support team to assist users if they experience any difficulties. Plugin users also have access to an entire 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 hrs (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund double the purchasing price.
Software Cost
- Single License Edition – Install the plugin on 1 of your own domains. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Can be installed on 25 domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Edition – Install the plugin on all of your own domains. Can be installed on any client site as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Pricing for this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing above was current at the time this content was published. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the product author 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 current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For a demo video showing how the plugin works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
The Bottom Line
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites and blogs. 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 – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Note: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering 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 in your country or region.
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