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 internet presence needs to comply with a whole set of federal, state and even local laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not 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 your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and very inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your site legally compliant in minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the internet continues growing at breakneck speed and rules keep changing, it’s important to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is an essential aspect of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you will not be accepted into a range of advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If your website is not in compliance, you could end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your site complies with all legal requirements and regulations, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that 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 could be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- 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 solutions that can help your website become compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss below.
In this article, we review a simple plugin for WordPress websites that provides a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital presence.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Legal Plugin
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin For WordPress is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
More info: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website or blog legally compliant:
Fast And Easy To Install And Set Up. Be Up And Running In Very Little Time.
Compliance Bar is really easy to install. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Legal Page Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
Easily modify the pre-built legal templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress visual editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated team to assist you with anything you need.
Additional benefits include:
- Customized Templates: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a full library of training videos is available.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Use On All WordPress Sites: As long as your site runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers that suit your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any templates that are irrelevant.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of features to WP users. Here are just some of those:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in no time.
- Show Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar will display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Restricted Information – If your website includes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you are based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU compliance requirements. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying visitors and covering your site from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – The plugin can record and store the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – The plugin uses shortcodes to automatically populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the mobile browser being used.
Compliance Bar Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” area will be added to your WP admin area.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where you can input your business information into entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to automatically insert and display the information entered into your User Profile fields in your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section contains all of the legal templates …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of templates made available by the plugin last time we checked the website:
- 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
Creating compliance pages for your blog or website is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” in the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of 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: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can easily edit and delete the compliance templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing your compliance pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance 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 home page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create an unlimited number of Compliance Bars to display different icons on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in different sections of your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using a specific WordPress theme framework (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile 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 compliance pages 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 publishes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), you can display popups that restricts access to users who do not accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in other areas of your website …
You can also set a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and store 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 compliance laws …
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 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” section, lists all of your compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Feedback
Below are a couple of the testimonials customers have submitted for Compliance Bar Plugin:
”I got a chance to review the Compliance Bar plugin…WOW!! I have to say that its definitely one of the most NECESSARY, yet easiest to use plugin’s to hit the scene in a while. Very Solid Product. Great job Anton & team!” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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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)
Useful Tips
Here are a few useful ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages of your site.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If you have adult content on your website, 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 support team to help users if they experience any problems. Users also get access to an entire library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 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 hours (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of the purchasing price.
Software Pricing
- Single User Licensing – Can be installed on 1 site that you own. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Install the plugin on 25 of your own sites. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on all domains that you own. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Price details for this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the product is being retailed for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the software author when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price here: Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how to” videos of the plugin in action, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Download This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered sites. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this 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 all legal requirements in your country or region.
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