One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your website needs to comply with numerous laws and regulations, some of which you may not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering significant financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and easy-to-use WordPress solution that can help make your site fully compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the digital business realm continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules constantly change, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your web presence is an essential part of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites 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 networks could suspend your web apps, and you won’t be allowed into most leading advertising or merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
At the very least, if your website is not in compliance, trust and confidence in your business may be damaged.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- How important it is to maintain compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or endorsing in your website, and
- There are solutions for WordPress users that can help your business become more compliant, such as the solution that we discuss below.
In this article, you will learn about a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your WordPress-based online business.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your website …
Go here to learn more about this plugin: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your site instantly compliant:
Ready To Start Using In Minutes
Compliance Bar is very easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Templates
You can easily edit the prebuilt templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress visual content editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated plugin support to help users.
Additional benefits of the plugin include the following:
- Customized Legal Pages: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and a full library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the built-in legal 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 In All Niches: If your site is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Just select the templates you want to include in your site and leave out all other unnecessary pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers many great features to website owners. Below we have listed just some:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Information – If your site publishes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, 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 users and protects your website from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Acceptance – The plugin records your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the popups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Once the plugin has been installed, users will get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where your information can be entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Location Details,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to automatically populate the information from your User Profile into your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been input into the user profile fields, you can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of the plugin’s compliance pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 20 compliance pages available for complying with online business laws and regulations:
- 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
You can create legal pages for your website or blog quite easily simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
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 Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily edit and delete the legal templates from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing the legal templates 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 settings area provides various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting which pages should be included in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your main 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 several Compliance Bars to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using particular 3rd-party themes (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, you can only select up to a certain number of page icons to display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have configured 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 the compliance icons to be featured …
PopUps
If your site contains content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), you can display pop-ups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you complete control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover various 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 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 Section: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in the EU 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 customize the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” section …
(EU Cookies Section: Manage Settings – Screenshot 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” area, lists all of your compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page 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 …
Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials and feedback that customers have provided for the Compliance Bar 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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”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 extra ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If your site includes adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated team to assist users if they experience any problems. Users also get access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 day, 200% refund guarantee. If your edition of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (M – F), your money will be refunded in double.
Plugin Price
- Single License Edition – Can be installed on a single domain. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on 25 of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Install the plugin on all as many of your own domains as you need. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: The price of the Compliance Bar software can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the software retails for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the software seller when you visit the plugin website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing: Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin in action, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Get This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on this 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 all legal requirements in your country or region.
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