One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your website must comply with a whole set of federal, state and even local laws, many of which you may not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering serious financial losses, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress users that can help make your website compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules are constantly changing, it’s important that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if your digital presence is a fundamental part of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you will not be accepted into a number of advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
At the very least, if your online presence is not compliant, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
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 many legal requirements in accordance with mandatory federal, state or local laws that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- How important it is to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or endorsing on your website, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress users that can help your site become compliant, such as the plugin that we review in this article.
In this article, we review a complete compliance and disclaimer plugin for your WordPress-based website.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence …
Learn more about this plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your site legally compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar installs like every plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WordPress administrator area and activate.
Page Templates Are Easy To Edit
Easily modify the built-in compliance templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides dedicated support to assist users if they experience any issues.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Customized Legal Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - an entire library of training videos is available.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the 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 On All WordPress Sites: As long as your website is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the pages you want to include in your site and leave out any irrelevant pages.
Features
Compliance Bar provides many features to web site owners. Here are just some:
- Fast and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icon Bar – Display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Content – If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and covers you from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – The plugin can record and store the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – The plugin uses shortcodes to populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the mobile browser being used.
Compliance Bar Features – Details
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, users will then have access to a number of settings pages.
Let’s briefly review these settings …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where you can enter your business information into entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Contact Phone,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile inside your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been input into the user profile fields, users can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of your templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
When we last checked the plugin website, there were over 22 legal templates available to WordPress users:
- 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
Creating compliance pages for your website is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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 Plugin: Compliance Page Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can easily modify and delete your legal page templates from the “Compliance Pages” section, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Pages – Image sourced from 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. compliance pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to display 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 offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses in other areas of your site.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using a specific 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” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile screens, 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 legal using a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature the compliance bar …
PopUps
If your website has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create unlimited Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your website …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and store the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Section: IP Log Details – Image 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 Cookie law …
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” tab …
(EU Cookies Section: Manage Settings – Image 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 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 …
Feedback From Plugin Customers
Here are a few of the testimonials and comments users have written about the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Plugin Tips
Below are a few additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your site contains content for adult viewers, 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 dedicated support to help you with anything you need. You also have access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 200% refund guarantee. If your version of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund double your purchase price.
Software Pricing
- Single User Personal License – Can be installed on one of your own domains. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on up to twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Install the plugin on multiple as many of your own sites as you like. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Pricing for Compliance Bar can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current pricing when this review was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin seller when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current price here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Legal Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal 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 website.
Download This Plugin
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 here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website. 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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