One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your website or blog must comply with various laws, many of which you may not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering significant financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business 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 compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
As the internet continues growing at breakneck speed and rules constantly change, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if your web presence is a significant component of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social sites will suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed into many advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
If your web presence is not in compliance, 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 your business online is not compliant, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with mandatory federal, state or local laws that govern your business,
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or endorsing online, and
- There are plugins for WordPress users that can help your business become more compliant, such as the solution that we discuss in this post.
If you suspect that your website is falling short in aspects of compliance, there is a simple WordPress plugin you will probably be interested in knowing more about.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your online business …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your web site legally compliant:
Fast And Easy To Install And Implement. Ready To Start Using In No Time.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like any plugin. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easy To Edit Page Templates
You can easily make changes to the prebuilt compliance templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated plugin support to assist users.
Additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Compliance Pages: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a complete library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the 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 In All Niches: If your site is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the legal pages you want to add to your site and leave out any irrelevant pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of features to WP users. Here are just a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to go to work in no time.
- Display Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Information – If you plan to publish content that should 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 and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies your visitors and covers your site from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records and stores the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the popups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor web browsers.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Once you have installed the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured is added to your WordPress backend.
Let’s briefly review these sections …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where your information can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” “Company Phone Number,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to populate and display the information entered into your User Profile fields in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been entered into the profile fields, users can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen contains all of the legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 20 compliance page templates available to plugin users:
- 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
You can easily create compliance pages for your website or blog by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” on the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar icons can be changed. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can easily modify and delete the compliance disclaimer templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing 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
You have 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 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 – Image 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 throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), 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 using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature your compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover various uses in different areas of your website …
You can also set a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying 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 – 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 Cookie law …
The plugin lets you customize 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” section, lists all of your legal disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page 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 just a few of the testimonials and feedback that customers have provided for 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 Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Useful Tips
Here are some additional ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If your website contains content for adults only, 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 dedicated plugin support to assist users with anything they need. You also get access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 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 (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double your cost of purchasing.
Software Price
- Single – Can be installed on a single site. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Install the plugin on 25 of your own sites. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Licensing – Install the plugin on all as many of your own sites as you like. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The price of this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing above was current when this review was published. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin 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 current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Additional Information
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we strongly 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 help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, 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 websites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here. 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 wherever your business is based.
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