One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of having broken the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering significant financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and 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.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules constantly change, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your web presence is an integral part of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed into most advertising or merchant 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 seriously affected.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with mandatory federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business,
- How important it is to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or endorsing online, and
- There are solutions for WordPress users that can help your business become compliant, such as the solution that we review below.
In this article, we review a simple plugin for WordPress websites that provides a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital presence.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your site …
Learn more about the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your web site instantly compliant:
Really Easy To Install
Compliance Bar is very easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your administrator account and activate.
Easily Editable Compliance Page Templates
You can easily modify the default templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated team to assist you.
Additional benefits of the plugin include:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a complete library of training videos is available.
- Use In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the default legal 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 For All Niches: If your website or blog runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore those that are not required.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers many features to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Ready to use in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Compliance Bar displays links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Content – If your website has content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying your users and covering your business from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record and store the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes that automatically 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 – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the web browser being used.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” screen will be added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where you can enter your information into input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” “Location Details,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate and display the information from your User Profile into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the profile fields, you can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area contains all of the legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 20 compliance templates available to WordPress users:
- 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 compliance pages for your website quite easily by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button in the “Compliance Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons are customizable. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can easily modify and delete the compliance templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing 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. compliance pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, selecting 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in different sections of your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using particular WordPress theme frameworks (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is 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 devices, there is a limit to the number of page icons you can display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have specified your Compliance Bar settings, it displays 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 your compliance bar to display …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create a number of customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a multitude of 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 displaying again within a specific time interval, and record 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 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 Compliance Bar plugin lets you manage 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 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 disclaimers and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials and feedback that users have submitted for Compliance Bar:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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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)
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Here are a few additional ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your website contains content that is inappropriate for underaged viewers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated support team to assist you. You also have access to a complete library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your copy 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 your cost of purchasing.
Product Price
- Single – Can be installed on a single site that you own. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on up to twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on all of your own domains. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Pricing for Compliance Bar Plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the price at the time this article was written. This may or may not be the actual price set by the software author when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar – Additional Info
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have 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 showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering 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 fully complies with the law in your country or region.
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