One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to break the law.
Your website must comply with a whole set of federal, state and even local laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring financial costs, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and very inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your website fully compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues growing at breakneck speed and rules constantly change, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your online presence is an integral component of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social networks will suspend your apps, and you will not be allowed into many other advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits.
At the very least, if your online business is not in compliance, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to be seriously damaged.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to be compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or using in your website, and
- There are easy solutions that can help your business become more compliant, such as the solution that we review below.
In this article, you will learn about a complete compliance and disclaimer plugin for your WordPress-based website.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a simple and easy-to-use WordPress plugin that includes over twenty customizable compliance disclaimers for your online presence …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your site instantly legally compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Configure. Be Up And Running In No Time.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like any regular plugin. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Page Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
Easily edit the pre-built templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress visual content editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help you.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Templates: The plugin will create 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 if users need assistance.
- Use In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the legal page templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used In All Niches: As long as your website or blog runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any templates that you don’t require.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar provides many unique features to WordPress users. Here are just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in very little time.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – The plugin displays links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Sensitive Content – If you plan to display content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies your users and protects you from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin records your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes that automatically 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).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the browser being used.
Plugin Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, you will then have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where you can input your business information into input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Business Address,” “Location Details,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate and display the information from your User Profile fields into your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been input into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen contains all of the legal pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of legal templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last 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 website can be easily done. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button on the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar icons are customizable. 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 Plugin: Compliance Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can easily customize and delete your legal templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image 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
You have various 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, and more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create a number of Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers 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 site, even if you are using a specific theme framework (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” 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 legal through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance bar to show …
PopUps
If your site publishes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display popups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your site …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and capture 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 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 edit the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” tab …
(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” tab, lists all of your legal 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 receiving plugin update notifications …
User Feedback
Below are just some testimonials and feedback that customers have provided for the Compliance Bar Plugin 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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”You wouldn’t drive a car around without insurance…so don’t RISK your online business by neglecting a simple, but important detail: website compliance. Grab your copy of Compliance Bar & protect yourself today!” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Plugin Tips
Below are a few extra ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If you include content for adults only on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help you. Plugin users also have access to full video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 hrs (M – F), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Product License Pricing
- Single Site Personal License – Install the plugin on a single site. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on twenty-five domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License Edition – Install the plugin on all of your own sites. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The price of this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the product is being retailed for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the product seller when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing information here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar – Additional Info
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For ”how-to” videos showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Install The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here. 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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