One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in 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 not only puts you at risk of incurring financial losses, but also 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 look at a simple and inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your site fully compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your online presence is an integral aspect of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, 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 freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you won’t be accepted into most other advertising and merchant networks.
If your online business is not compliant, you could face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, without making it very clear to your visitors that your site complies with legal requirements and guidelines, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal 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 various legal requirements in accordance with compulsory 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 are offering or using in your website, and
- There are cost-effective solutions that can help your website become more compliant, such as the solution that we discuss in this post.
If you suspect that your web site lacks in areas of compliance, below we review a simple plugin for WordPress users you should know more about.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your website …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your website or blog instantly compliant:
Fast And Easy To Install And Configure. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like any regular plugin. Just upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Legal Page Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
Easily edit the built-in templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin develop provides a dedicated support team to help users with anything they need.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Customized Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a full library of training videos is provided.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used On All WordPress Sites: If your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the templates you need to include in your site and ignore any unnecessary pages.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar offers many great features to site owners. Here are just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – The plugin displays links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Content – If your website contains 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 require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe 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. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying visitors and covering your site from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar can record the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the popups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Using The Plugin
After installing and activating the plugin, users will get access to various settings pages.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where your business information can be input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Business Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to dynamically populate and display the information inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of the legal template pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last checked their site:
- 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can create compliance pages for your website or blog quite easily by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Compliance Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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: Legal Page Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can customize and delete the compliance templates from the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing 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
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to show 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 home page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create unlimited Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, even if you are using a specific premium theme (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” 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 displays links to your legal through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance bar to appear …
PopUps
If your website includes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want the Pop Ups to display immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, 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 Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance requirements …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you edit 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 – 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” section, lists all of your legal page 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 receiving plugin update notifications …
User Feedback
Here are a few of the testimonials and comments users have submitted for 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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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Below are some extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you publish content that is considered inappropriate for minors on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated support team to help you. You also get access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% refund guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 business hours (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund twice the purchasing price.
Software Price
- Single Site Personal License – Install the plugin on a single site. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Install the plugin on 25 sites that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Can be installed on all sites that you own. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Pricing for this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current price when this article was published. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin author when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for peace of mind.
For a demo video showing how the plugin works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Our Recommendation
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered sites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here. 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 wherever your business is based.
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