One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your website or blog must comply with a whole set of laws, some of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring significant financial costs, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your site compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules constantly change, it’s vitally important to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your digital presence is an essential part of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social sites could suspend your web applications, and you won’t be accepted into various advertising and merchant networks.
If your digital presence is not compliant, you could end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your business online is not compliant, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that 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 may be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- How important it is to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using online, and
- There are inexpensive solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your website become compliant, such as the tool that we review in this article.
If you suspect that your website is falling short in terms of compliance, there is a simple WordPress plugin that you should know more about.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple and easy-to-install plugin for WordPress-powered websites containing over 20 customizable compliance disclaimers for your web presence …
Go here to learn more about this plugin: Compliance Bar
Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your web site compliant:
Fast And Easy To Install And Configure. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar is quite easy to install. Just upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Templates
Easily modify the prebuilt compliance templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the visual editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated plugin support to help users with anything they need.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a full library of training videos is provided.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the 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.
- Can Be Used For All Website Purposes: As long as your website or blog is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any templates that you don’t require.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many unique features to WordPress users. Here are just a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Information – If you plan to publish content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your site’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 need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering you from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records and stores your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes to populate compliance pages 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 web browser being used.
Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, users will then get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s review these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where you can enter your business information into input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” “Contact Phone,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Image source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to populate and display the information you’ve inputted into your User Profile fields into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 20 compliance templates available for complying with online business laws and regulations:
- 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 create compliance pages for your website simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button on the “Create Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal 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 comes with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar 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: Compliance Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can easily modify and delete your compliance page templates from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just like any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing 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 you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, 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 home 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 display different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of 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 framework (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 “regular” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile device 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 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 your compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’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 Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other sections of your site …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and even record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Section: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in Europe 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 lets you edit 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 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” section, lists all of your compliance pages and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Testimonials
Here are a few of the testimonials users have written about the Compliance Bar plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”If you are like me, you maybe have quite a few WordPress sites, all needing attention and most importantly, all needing to be on the right side of the law! I’ve tried several legal pages plugins and in pretty much every case, they let me down. They simply cause more work than they solve.To me, the answer should be simple. It should work and it should let me get on with building my site. After all, I know I NEED to do this stuff, but hey, I don’t really WANT to! So, for me, I don’t want those plugins that cause more work than they solve. Simple eh? Well now it is because Anton & John have just created this baby that is the answer to my needs. The Compliance Bar Plugin does what I need it to do then lets me get on with my empire building…Perfect!” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Here are some extra ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you publish content for adults only on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated plugin support to help you with anything you need. Plugin users also have access to full video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty 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 business hours (Monday to Friday), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Plugin Price
- Single Site Personal License – Can be installed on one of your own domains. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Install the plugin on twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Can be installed on multiple sites that you own. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: Price details for Compliance Bar can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current price when this content was written. This may not be the actual price set by the plugin developer when you visit the product 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 Plugin
Compliance Bar – Additional Info
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For a demo video of the plugin, including installation instructions 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 sites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Disclaimer: Once again, 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 to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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