One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your website needs to comply with a whole range of federal, state and even local laws, many of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring significant financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your website compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the cybersphere continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules keep changing, it’s vital to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your online presence is an integral aspect of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products for sale, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social networks could suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed into most leading advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If your digital presence is not compliant, you could also end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, without making it clear to your visitors that your website complies with legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, it could affect your visitors trust and confidence in doing any business with you in the future.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may 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),
- The importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or using on your website, and
- There are plugin-based solutions for WordPress site owners that can help your business become more compliant, such as the solution that we discuss in this article.
In this article, we review a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs that provides a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your website.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-install plugin for WordPress users that contains over twenty customizable compliance disclaimer templates for your online business …
Go here to learn more about the plugin: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website or blog compliant:
Quick And Simple To Install And Set Up. Ready To Go To Work In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like any WordPress plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your administrator login and activate.
Templates Are Easy To Edit
You can easily edit the prebuilt legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress visual editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist you with anything you need.
Additional benefits of using the plugin include the following:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: The Compliance Bar 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 complete library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the default templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use For Any Website Purpose: If your website or blog is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any templates that are not required.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar provides many features to site owners. Here are just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Ready to use in no time.
- Show Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar will display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Information – If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and protects you from non-compliance issues.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin 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, (even in the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
After installing and activating the plugin, you have access to various settings.
Let’s go through these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where your information can be input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” “Company Phone Number,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile fields inside your page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin 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 screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of the plugin’s compliance templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 compliance pages available to plugin users:
- 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
Creating legal pages for your site is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button in the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar icons can be changed. 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 Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can easily modify and delete your legal pages in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin will notify you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before installing 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, icon size, specifying 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 – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create an unlimited number of Compliance Bars to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using particular themes (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), 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 configured your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your compliance pages using a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature your compliance icons …
PopUps
If your website has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that blocks access to users who do not accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create unlimited customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing 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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance laws …
Compliance Bar lets you customize the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” section …
(EU Cookies Section: 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” section, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
User Testimonials
Here are a couple of the testimonials that plugin customers have published about Compliance Bar:
”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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”I wanted to reach out & say Compliance Bar is a truly amazing product for keeping my online marketing efforts on the right side of the internet laws. Not only does it look fantastic on my sites, it is also intuitive and robustly powerful. It is packed full of features to allow me the flexibility to control exactly what my visitors need to see and know” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar – Useful Tips
Below are a few additional ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your website includes content that is considered inappropriate for persons below a certain age, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated support to help users if they experience any problems. Users also get access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 hrs (M – F), the plugin developers will refund twice your purchasing price.
Software Pricing
- Single – Install the plugin on a single domain. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Can be installed on twenty-five of your own sites. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Install the plugin on all sites that you own. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: The price of Compliance Bar can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the plugin sells for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the product 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 Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For ”how to” videos of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Install The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin
Note: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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