One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of having broken the law.
Your website must comply with many laws and regulations, many of which you may not be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering financial costs, 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 easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your site fully compliant in minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
As the digital realm continues growing at breakneck speed and rules keep changing, it’s vital to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if your digital presence is a significant aspect of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social sites will suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed into most leading advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If your business online is not in compliance, you could also face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your website complies with all legal requirements and regulations, 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: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws and regulations 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 promoting or using on your website, and
- There are easy solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the solution that we review below.
In this article, we review a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your web presence.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-install and simple-to-use plugin for WordPress users with over 20 customizable legal page templates for your online business …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Below are just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your site instantly legally compliant:
Quick And Simple To Install And Set Up. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like any plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easily Editable Page Templates
You can easily make changes to the default templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated plugin support to help you if you experience any issues.
Additional benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Templates: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and a full 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 built-in legal page templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Use For Every Website Purpose: If your site runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Just select the pages you need to add to your site and leave out all other irrelevant pages.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides a number of features to WordPress users. Here are just a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Information – If you plan to publish content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies your visitors and covers your business from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – The plugin records your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – The plugin uses shortcodes that automatically populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the popups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor browsers.
Using Compliance Bar
Once you have installed the plugin, you will then get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s review these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your business information can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Registered Company Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to populate and display the information from your User Profile in your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of the compliance pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
When we last checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 20 compliance pages made available:
- 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 by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button on the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar icons are customizable. You can purchase an additional set of icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your site’s design …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can modify and delete the legal pages from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing the legal templates is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. legal pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon 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, and more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different icons 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 a specific theme (e.g. 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 screens, 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 will display links to your legal through a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance icons to display …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that restricts access to users who do not accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your site …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and store the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business 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 manage the settings for compliance with EU 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” tab, lists all of your compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
User Feedback
Below are just a few of the testimonials and comments plugin users have submitted regarding Compliance Bar:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Useful Tips
Here 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.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your site contains adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated support team to help you. You also get access to a complete library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 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 business hours (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double your purchase price.
Software Pricing
- Single – Can be installed on 1 site that you own. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on all of your own sites. Can be installed on all client sites as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The cost of purchasing this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current price when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the product seller when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Additional Information
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For a demo video of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, 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 sites. We recommend 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 Plugin – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Important: Once again, please note that 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 all legal requirements in your country or region.
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