One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your website or blog must comply with numerous federal, state and even local laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring significant financial loss, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
As the digital 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 site remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is a fundamental aspect of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social networks will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed into various leading advertising and merchant networks.
If your website is not compliant, you could end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your website complies with legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, it could affect your visitors trust and confidence about doing any future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
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 may be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with compulsory federal, state or local laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to be compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using online, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress users that can help your business become compliant, such as the tool that we discuss below.
In this article, we review a complete compliance and disclaimer plugin for your digital business.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website or blog instantly compliant:
Installation Is Easy
Compliance Bar is quite easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your admin user login and activate.
Editable Compliance Page Templates
Easily edit the prebuilt templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress visual editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated plugin support team to assist you if you experience any problems.
Additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - an entire library of training videos is available if you need assistance.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the default legal page templates provided with the plugin 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 or blog is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out those that you don’t require.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many great features to site owners. Below we have listed just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – 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 your own icons.
- Display Restricted Content – If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display popups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU 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 plugin displays an attractive bar notifying visitors and covering you from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes to 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).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the browser being used.
Using The Plugin
After installing and activating the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured will be added to your WordPress admin area.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can input your business information into entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to automatically populate and display the information entered into your User Profile fields into your page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input 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 legal templates …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page 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
Creating legal pages for your blog or website is a simple process. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button in the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
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: Compliance Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can customize and delete your compliance disclaimer templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin will notify 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 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 more …
(Compliance Bar Section: 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 various uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to 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 settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” WordPress 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 compliance pages using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature your compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create several customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover various uses in other sections of your site …
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 store 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 EU visitors, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements …
The Compliance Bar plugin 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” section …
(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 legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Customers
Here are some of the testimonials that customers have provided for 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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”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
Here are a few additional ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If your website includes content that is inappropriate for underaged viewers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated plugin support team to help users. Plugin users also get access to an entire library 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 hrs (Monday to Friday), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Plugin Pricing
- Single Edition – Can be installed on 1 of your own sites. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Install the plugin on twenty-five of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Can be installed on multiple sites that you own. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Pricing details of Compliance Bar Plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing shown above was current when this content was written. This may not be the actual pricing set by the product author when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current price here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Page Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For ”how to” videos showing how the software works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Install This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered sites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.
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