One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your website or blog must comply with many federal, state and even local laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring serious financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and easy-to-use WordPress solution that can help make your website compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your online presence is a fundamental component of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social sites will suspend your web apps, and you will not be allowed into most advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
At the very least, if your business online is not in compliance, it could affect your visitors trust and confidence in doing business with you in the future.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws that govern your business,
- The importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or endorsing in your website, and
- There are plugins for WordPress site owners that can help your website become compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss below.
In this article, we review a total compliance and disclaimer solution for a WordPress-based digital presence.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-install plugin for WordPress users containing over twenty customizable legal page templates for your digital business …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website instantly compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Set Up. Ready To Use In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin is quite easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your administrator login and activate.
Easily Editable Compliance Page Templates
Easily modify the built-in legal templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support Team
The plugin develop provides a dedicated team to help users.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Compliance Pages: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and a full library of training videos is provided if you need help.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the default legal page templates provided in 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 Website Purposes: If your site is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the pages you need to add to your site and leave out unnecessary pages.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of features to web site owners. Below we have listed just some of those:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Ready to use in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Restricted Information – If you plan to publish content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business 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. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies your visitors and covers you from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar can record and store the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the mobile browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
After installing and activating the plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” area is added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where your information can be 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 Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to insert the information in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the profile fields, users can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of the pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of legal templates made available by the plugin when we last checked their website:
- 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
You can create legal pages for your site quite easily simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button on the “Create Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page 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 attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar 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 Plugin: Compliance Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can easily edit and delete the legal templates in the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing the compliance pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. legal pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers 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, selecting which pages to include an icon for in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your front page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and more …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme framework (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” WordPress 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 attractive icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature your compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display pop-ups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create several customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover various uses in other areas of your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and even record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
The plugin 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” screen …
(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” area, lists all of your compliance disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Customers
Below are a few of the testimonials users have written about Compliance Bar Plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Below are a few extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you have content that is considered inappropriate for underaged viewers on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated team to assist users with anything they need. Plugin users also have access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your version of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double your cost of purchasing.
Product Pricing
- Single User Personal License – Install the plugin on a single domain. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Edition – Can be installed on multiple as many of your own sites as you need. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost to purchase Compliance Bar Plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the product retails for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer 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 – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Download The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress sites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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