One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to break the law.
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 incurring financial costs, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and easy-to-use WordPress solution that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital business realm continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s important to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your digital presence is an integral component of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you will not be accepted into a range of other advertising and merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
At the very least, if your digital presence is not compliant, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to be seriously diminished.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or using online, and
- There are solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your website become more compliant, such as the solution that we review below.
In this article, we review a total compliance and disclaimer plugin for a WordPress-based digital business.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple and easy-to-use WordPress plugin that contains over twenty customizable legal disclaimers for your web presence …
Go here to learn more about this plugin: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to make your site instantly legally compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Set Up. Ready To Use In Very Little Time.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like every plugin. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your administrator area and activate.
Page Templates Are Really Easy To Edit
You can easily modify the prebuilt compliance templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated team to help you with anything you need.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Legal 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 an entire library of training videos is available.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the default legal templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Use For All Website Purposes: As long as your website is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers that pertain to your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out those that are not required.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of great features to WP users. Below we have listed just some of those features:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Ready to use in no time.
- Show Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar will display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Information – If your website has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and protects your business from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – The plugin records your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – The plugin uses shortcodes to automatically populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the popups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor web browsers.
Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” screen will be added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s briefly review these pages …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where your business information can be input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to insert the information inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the profile fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area lists all of the templates …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of template pages made available by the plugin last time we checked their website:
- 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 can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button in the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can easily modify and delete your compliance pages from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing the compliance 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, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting which pages to include an icon for 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 Screen: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using a specific premium theme framework (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 normal “static” 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 attractive icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance bar to display …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other areas of your website …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display immediately, set a cookie duration 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 – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
The Compliance Bar 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 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” tab, lists all of your compliance disclaimers and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Testimonials
Below are a few of the testimonials and feedback that plugin users have provided for the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Useful Tips
Here are some useful ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages of your site.
- 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.
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, 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 hours (Monday to Friday), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Software Cost
- Single License Edition – Install the plugin on one domain that you own. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on twenty-five of your own sites. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Install the plugin on all sites that you own. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Pricing for Compliance Bar Plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current pricing when this content was published. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin seller when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Additional Plugin Information
Legal Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers state 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 peace of mind.
For ”how to” videos of the plugin, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
What We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven sites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, visit the plugin website: 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. 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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