One of the worst situations 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 the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring significant financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules constantly change, it’s vitally important to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your online presence is a significant aspect of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed into many leading advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
Plus, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your web properties comply with legal requirements and regulations, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws and regulations that govern your business,
- How important it is to remain compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or endorsing online, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress users that can help your business become more compliant, such as the solution that we review below.
In this article, you will learn about a total compliance & disclaimer solution for a WordPress-based digital business.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a simple and easy-to-install WordPress plugin with over 20 customizable legal disclaimer templates for your online presence …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website or blog legally compliant:
Ready To Use In Minutes
Compliance Bar Plugin is really easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your WP admin user area and activate.
Easily Editable Legal Page Templates
You can easily make changes to the default compliance templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated plugin support team to help you if you experience any difficulties.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and a complete library of training videos is available.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that 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 Every Website Purpose: As long as your website is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Just select the templates you want to include in your site and leave out irrelevant pages.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many great features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar will display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed on different locations in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Content – If you plan to publish content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe 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 displays an attractive bar notifying your visitors and covering your business from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – The plugin can record the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes to populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the pop-ups).
- Works On Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the web browser being used.
Plugin Features – Details
Once you have installed the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured gets added to your WordPress admin area.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can enter your business details into input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Company Phone Number,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile fields inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the profile fields, users can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of the legal pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of template pages made available by the Compliance Bar plugin last time we checked the 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
Creating compliance pages for your site is a simple process. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button on the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in 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: Compliance Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can customize and delete your compliance templates from the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing your compliance pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin will notify you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to show links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, specifying which pages to include an icon for 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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using a specific premium theme (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” 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 specified your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your legal using a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance bar to be featured …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses in other areas of 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 capture the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law …
Compliance Bar 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 legal templates 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 From Customers
Below are a few of the testimonials and comments that customers have provided for the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
***
“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Plugin Tips
Below are a few extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If you have content for adults only on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist you with anything you need. Users also get access to complete video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty 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 hours (M – F), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Plugin Cost
- Single – Install the plugin on 1 domain that you own. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Can be installed on multiple as many of your own sites as you want. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The cost to purchase the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing shown above was correct at the time this review was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin author 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 current price: Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Additional Plugin Info
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how to” videos of the plugin in action, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
The Bottom Line
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven sites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Note: 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.
***