One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring serious financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and very inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your website legally compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the digital business realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your digital presence is an integral aspect of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as 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 freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social networks could suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed into a number of leading advertising or merchant networks.
If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you are not in compliance, trust and confidence in your business may be damaged.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website.
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 compulsory laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- The importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or using online, and
- There are cost-effective solutions for WordPress users that can help your site become more compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss below.
In this article, we review a total compliance & disclaimer solution for a WordPress-based online presence.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Legal Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple and easy-to-use plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs that includes over 20 customizable compliance disclaimers for your website …
More info: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Below are just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Set Up. Be Up And Running In No Time.
Compliance Bar Plugin is really easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Editable Page Templates
You can easily modify the prebuilt legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support Team
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated team to help you.
Some additional benefits of using the plugin include:
- Customized Compliance Page Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - an entire library of training videos is provided if you need help.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the legal templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use For All Website Purposes: If your website is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the legal pages you want to include in your site and leave out any unnecessary pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of great features to website owners. Here are just some of those:
- Fast and simple to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Sensitive Information – If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business 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. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and covers your website from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – The plugin records the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes to automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Using The Plugin
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” screen is added to your WP admin area.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where you can enter your information into input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information from your User Profile fields inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the profile fields, you can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of the compliance templates …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of templates made available by the plugin last time we checked the site:
- 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 create compliance pages for your website or blog quite easily by simply selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button on the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can edit and delete your compliance page templates in the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from 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. pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying 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 main 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 icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other areas of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your site, even if you are using particular theme frameworks (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile screens, 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 will display links to your legal through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to display the compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), you can display pop-ups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create a number of customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and even 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 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 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” tab …
(EU Cookies Section: 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” area, lists all of your legal disclaimers and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
User Feedback
Here are a few of the testimonials that plugin customers have published about the Compliance Bar plugin:
”One of the most annoying parts about building out a site is to make sure it complies with the law. I always leave this part to the end because its painfully dry and boring and frankly I always just wished their was an easier way. Then I came across Compliance Bar and its literally the most versitile and brilliant plugin I have ever used. All my pages meet FTC requirements now and all I had to do was press a button! Anton and Jon..you guys friggen rock — 1000% highly recommend this!!” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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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
Useful Tips
Below are a few additional ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- Minimizing 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 access your content.
Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist users if they experience any issues. You also have access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% money-back 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 purchase price will be refunded in double.
Product Price
- Single – Install the plugin on 1 domain that you own. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on 25 of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License – Can be installed 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 the Compliance Bar product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing shown above was current at the time this review was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the software seller when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Additional Information
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For a demo video 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 The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites. We recommend downloading and 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 – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Legal 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 wherever your business is based.
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