One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of having broken the law.
Your website or blog has to comply with a whole set of federal, state and even local laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering significant financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and very inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your website fully compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game are constantly changing, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if your online presence is a fundamental aspect of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social networks could suspend your web apps, and you won’t be accepted into most leading advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
At the very least, if your web presence is not in compliance, trust and confidence in your business could be irrepairably.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article.
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 mandatory laws and regulations that govern your business,
- How important it is to maintain compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or endorsing on your website, and
- There are inexpensive solutions for WordPress users that can help your site become compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress websites that provides a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your website.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your online business …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar
Below are just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your site instantly legally compliant:
Fast And Easy To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar is very easy to install. Simply upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin user section and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Page Templates
Easily make changes to the prebuilt legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the visual content editor.
Dedicated Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated team to assist users with anything they need.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Compliance Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - an entire library of training videos is provided.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative 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 your business is located.
- Use For All Website Purposes: If your site runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers that suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out those that you don’t require.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers many features to WordPress users. Here are just some:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in very little time.
- Display Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Information – If you plan to show 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 terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies your users and covers your website from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – The plugin records the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes that populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (even in the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the mobile browser being used.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, users have access to a number of settings pages.
Let’s briefly review these sections …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where your business details can be entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Address,” “Location Details,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to automatically insert and display the information inside your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen contains all of the plugin’s compliance templates …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 legal pages available, addressing all aspects of compliance:
- 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can easily create legal pages for your website or blog by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image 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 can be changed. 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 Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can easily edit and delete the compliance disclaimer templates in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Pages – Image source: 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, specifying 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create an unlimited number of Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in different sections of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using particular themes (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, there is a limit to the number of page icons you can display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have specified your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your legal through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to display your compliance bar …
PopUps
If your site contains content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms and 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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create multiple Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your site …
You can also specify 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 even record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law …
The plugin 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” section …
(EU Cookies Section: Manage Settings – Screenshot 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 pages and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
User Feedback
Here are just some testimonials and feedback plugin users have published about the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” 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
Plugin Tips
Here are a few extra ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your site.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you include content for adult readers on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated plugin support to assist users with anything they need. Users also get access to an entire set of training videos.
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 hrs (M – F), the plugin developers will refund twice your cost of purchase.
Product License Price
- Single – Can be installed on a single site. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Install the plugin on up to 25 of your own sites. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Install the plugin on multiple as many of your own sites as you like. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Pricing details of Compliance Bar can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current price at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the software developer when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal 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 This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites and blogs. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website. 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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