One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
If your website isn’t compliant 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 review a simple and very inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your website fully compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital business realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules constantly change, it’s vitally important that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your online presence is an integral part of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your apps, and you will not be allowed into many advertising and merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
At the very least, if your digital presence is not compliant, trust and confidence in your business may seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
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 could be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with compulsory 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 solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the solution that we review below.
If your web site lacks in aspects of compliance, there is a simple WordPress plugin you may be interested in knowing more about.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-use plugin for WordPress websites containing over twenty customizable compliance pages for your online presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website legally compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Set Up. Be Up And Running In No Time.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like every plugin. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Editable Legal Page Templates
You can easily edit the pre-built legal page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG content editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help you with anything you need.
Additional benefits of this plugin include:
- Customized Legal Pages: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a complete library of training videos is provided.
- Use In Every Country: 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 you are located.
- Can Be Used For All Website Purposes: As long as your website or blog runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers that suit your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any pages that you don’t need.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar provides many unique features to WP users. Here are just some of those features:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed on different locations in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Information – If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you are based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and protects you from non-compliance issues.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin can record the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes that populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the popups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured gets added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where your information can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Company Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to dynamically populate and display the information you’ve inputted into your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been input into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of the plugin’s pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
When we last checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 legal page templates available:
- 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
You can easily and quickly create legal pages for your website simply by selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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 theme …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can modify and delete your legal disclaimer templates in the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing 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 you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, specifying 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, and more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create multiple Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other sections of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, 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 displays links to your compliance pages using a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance icons to appear …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create a number of customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses in other areas of your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want the Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing 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 – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance laws …
The plugin lets you manage the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” area …
(EU Cookies Section: 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” screen, lists all of your compliance disclaimer 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 receiving plugin update notifications …
User Feedback
Here are a couple of the testimonials and comments that users have published about 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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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Plugin Tips
Here are a few additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If you include adult content on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated plugin support team to assist users with anything they need. Users also get access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your version of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 business hours (M – F), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Software Pricing
- Single License Edition – Install the plugin on a single site. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on up to 25 of your own sites. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on multiple domains that you own. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Pricing for the Compliance Bar product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing shown above was current at the time this content was published. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Additional Plugin Info
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For demo videos showing how the plugin works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, 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.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.
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