One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to break the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring both financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your site compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules keep changing, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your web presence is an integral aspect of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social networks will suspend your web apps, and you will not be accepted into most leading advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
If your online business is not compliant, you could also face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your web presence is not in compliance, it could impact on your visitors trust and confidence about doing any future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws 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 may be promoting or using in your website, and
- There are easy-to-use solutions that can help your website become more compliant, such as the tool that we discuss below.
In this article, you will learn about a total compliance & disclaimer plugin for your WordPress-based online business.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin For WordPress is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your web presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your web site compliant:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
Compliance Bar is very easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin user area and activate.
Easy To Edit Templates
Easily edit the pre-built legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress visual editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support Team
Compliance Bar provides dedicated support to help you.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Customized Legal Pages: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and a full library of training videos is provided if you need help.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the built-in legal page 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 Any Website Purpose: As long as your site is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit 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 need.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides a number of features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just some of those features:
- Quick and simple to install and implement. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Content – If your website contains content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms and 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 laws. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your site from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – 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 website, (including the pop-ups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the web browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Once the Compliance Bar plugin is installed, users will then have access to various settings.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where you can input your business details into entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to dynamically populate and display the information from your User Profile inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been entered into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of the pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of legal templates made available by the plugin last time we checked the 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 website quite easily simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button in the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can easily modify and delete the compliance page templates from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing the compliance 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 you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides 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 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 Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create an unlimited number of Compliance Bars to display different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using a specific premium theme framework (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” WordPress 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 dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance icons to display …
PopUps
If your site contains content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), you can display pop-ups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your website’s terms or 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 source: plugin documentation)
You can create unlimited Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout 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 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 – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in the EU 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 …
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 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 legal pages and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Here are a couple of the testimonials that plugin customers have published about the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”When I got my hands on Compliance Bar, I knew I needed help to be compliant, but I had no idea how much danger I was in, nor did I know all of the different things I needed to be compliant. Once I installed Compliance Bar, I was able to very quickly add all the items I needed to ensure I didn’t end up getting fined by various agencies, or have my site pulled from Google. The best part is that getting it all set up took only minutes, and I know that I am far safer than I was. Compliance Bar is one of the best plugins I have used in a long time.” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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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)
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Below are some extra ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your website only.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If you publish content that is inappropriate for underaged viewers on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated support to assist users. Plugin users also have access to full video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 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 (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund twice the cost of purchasing.
Product Pricing
- Single – Can be installed on one domain that you own. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Can be installed on up to twenty-five of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License – Install the plugin on all domains that you own. Can be installed on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Pricing for Compliance Bar Plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current price at the time this review was published. This may or may not be the actual price set by the product seller when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a 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 ”how-to” videos showing how the software works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, 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-driven sites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law in your country or region.
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