One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your website has to comply with a number of laws and regulations, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring significant financial loss, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules are constantly changing, it’s important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your web presence is a fundamental aspect of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal 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 close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your web apps, and you will not be allowed into many other advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
If your website is not compliant, you could also end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your online business is not in compliance, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws and regulations that govern your business,
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or endorsing in your website, and
- There are inexpensive solutions that can help your site become compliant, such as the solution that we discuss in this article.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress users that provides a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital presence.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use WordPress plugin that includes over twenty customizable legal disclaimer templates for your digital presence …
Go here to learn more about the plugin: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar
Here we have listed just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your site compliant:
Fast And Easy To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In No Time.
Compliance Bar is really easy to install. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WP admin section and activate.
Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
You can easily make changes to the prebuilt legal templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated support team to assist users if they experience any issues.
Some additional benefits include:
- Customized Templates: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Manuals: 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 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.
- Can Be Used On All WordPress Sites: As long as your site is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the legal pages you need to add to your site and ignore unnecessary pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many features to site owners. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Attractive Icons – Display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed 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-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and covers your website from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Acceptance – The plugin can record and store your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – 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).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Features – Details
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured gets added to your WordPress dashboard.
Let’s briefly review these settings …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your business information can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information from your User Profile fields into your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the profile fields, users can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of the legal pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
When we last checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 compliance page templates available for complying with online business laws and regulations:
- 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can easily create legal pages for your site by simply selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Compliance Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
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 Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can modify and delete your compliance pages from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing your legal pages 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
The plugin offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to display 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 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 display different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using particular WordPress themes (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” 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 displays links to your compliance pages through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance icons to display …
PopUps
If your website contains content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), you can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in other areas of your site …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want the Pop Ups 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 Section: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based 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 …
The Compliance Bar 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” area …
(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” screen, lists all of your legal page templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials that plugin users have submitted for the 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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”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
Here are some additional ways to 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.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you publish adult content on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist users. Users also have access to full video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% refund guarantee. If your version of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (Monday to Friday), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Plugin Cost
- Single Edition – Can be installed on 1 site that you own. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Install the plugin on up to 25 domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License – Can be installed on all of your own domains. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Current pricing for this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the plugin is selling for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin author 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 – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how-to” videos showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
In Conclusion
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.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Note: 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 of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.
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