One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring 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 look at a simple and cost-effective WordPress solution that can help make your site legally compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules constantly change, it’s important that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your digital presence is an integral part of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products for sale, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social networks will suspend your apps, and you won’t be accepted into most leading advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
At the very least, without making it very clear to your visitors that your web properties comply with all legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with mandatory federal, state and local laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- The importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or endorsing on your website, and
- There are plugins for WordPress website owners that can help your website become compliant, such as the plugin that we review below.
If you suspect that your website or blog is lacking in areas of compliance, below we review a simple plugin for WordPress users you should know more about.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your online presence …
More info: Compliance Bar
Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to make your website instantly compliant:
Fast Installation
Compliance Bar is really easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WordPress administrator section and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Templates
You can easily modify the default legal templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the visual content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help users with anything they need.
Additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Compliance Pages: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and an entire library of training videos is provided.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the default templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Use In All Niches: As long as your website is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers that suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any that are not necessary.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers many great features to web site owners. Below we have listed just some of those:
- Fast and simple to install and use. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of 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 includes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business 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. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying your visitors and covering you from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the pop-ups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the web browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, users will then get access to a number of settings.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where your business details can be input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” “Contact Phone,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information you have input into your User Profile fields inside your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of the templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of templates made available by the plugin last time we 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 easily and quickly create compliance pages for your website or blog simply by selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” on the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal 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 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can modify and delete your compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” section, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing your legal templates 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
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, specifying which pages should be included in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your front page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and more …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from 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 front page of your website, even if you are using particular themes (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile device 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 displays links to your compliance pages using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to display your compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), you can display popups that blocks access to users who do not accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create unlimited customized Pop Ups displaying on 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 displaying 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 the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to 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” area …
(EU Cookies Screen: 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” screen, lists all of your legal disclaimers and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials users have provided for Compliance Bar Plugin:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Here are some extra ways you can 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.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you have 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.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated support team to help users if they experience any problems. Plugin users also have access to complete video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your version of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 business hours (Monday to Friday), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Software Pricing
- Single Site Licensing – Can be installed on a single domain that you own. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on up to twenty-five of your own sites. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License – Install the plugin on all domains that you own. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost of purchasing Compliance Bar Plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price shown above was current when this review was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page 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 to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how-to” videos showing how the plugin works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer 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-powered websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no 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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