One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
Your website or blog has to comply with numerous federal, state and even local laws and regulations, many of which you may not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring serious 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 post, we review a simple and cost-effective WordPress solution that can help make your website compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules keep changing, it’s vitally important that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains legally compliant, especially if your online presence is a significant aspect of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social networks could suspend your apps, and you won’t be allowed into a number of other advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If your business online is not in compliance, 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, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to be irrepairably affected.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business,
- The importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or endorsing on your website, and
- There are solutions for WordPress users that can help your business become more compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss below.
In this article, you will learn about a simple WordPress plugin that provides a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital business.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your site …
To learn more about the plugin go here: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website compliant:
Ready To Use In Minutes
Compliance Bar is very easy to install. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WP admin user section and activate.
Easy To Edit Templates
Easily modify the default legal templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the visual editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help users.
Additional benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Pages: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - an entire library of training videos is available if users need assistance.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the default legal page templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Can Be Used For All Niches: As long as your website or blog is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the pages you want to add to your site and ignore the unnecessary pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of great features to web site owners. Here are just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Content – If your site contains content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies your users and protects your business from non-compliance issues.
- Records & Stores IP Addresses – The plugin records the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes to populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (even in the popups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the mobile browser being used.
Plugin Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured is added to your WP admin area.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where your business details can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Contact Phone,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to dynamically insert the information inside your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area contains all of the templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 legal pages available to plugin users:
- 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 compliance pages for your blog or website simply by selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button in the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance 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 comes with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can easily modify and delete the compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- 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 many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, specifying which pages should be included 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 Section: 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 different uses in other sections of your site.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using a specific theme (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, you can only select up to a certain number of page icons to display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have specified your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your compliance pages using a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance icons to be featured …
PopUps
If your site has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that restricts access to users who do not accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create a number of Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your website …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and capture 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 you are based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws …
Compliance Bar lets you manage 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 sourced from 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 compliance disclaimer 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 getting plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Users
Below are some of the testimonials and comments that users have submitted regarding Compliance Bar:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Here are some additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If your website published adult content, 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 support to assist users. You also have access to a complete library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% refund guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of the purchase price.
Product Price
- Single License Edition – Can be installed on a single domain. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on up to twenty-five sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on multiple domains that you own. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Current pricing for Compliance Bar Plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price above was correct at the time this review was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the product seller when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page 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 in action, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Our Recommendation
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering 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 in your country or region.
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