One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your website or blog has to comply with numerous laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering significant financial costs, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your website fully compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules constantly change, it’s vitally important to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your digital presence is an integral component of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial 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 shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your apps, and you won’t be accepted into a range of other advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
If your website is not in compliance, you could also face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your website is not in compliance, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern your business,
- How important it is to maintain compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or using online, and
- There are solutions that can help your website become more compliant, such as the solution that we review in this post.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress-powered websites that provides a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital business.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your online presence …
More info: 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 site legally compliant:
Fast And Easy To Install And Set Up. Ready To Use In No Time.
Compliance Bar is really easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Easy To Edit Templates
Easily modify the prebuilt legal templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the visual content editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated support to help users with anything they need.
Additional benefits of this plugin include:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and an entire library of training videos is available if users need help.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the default legal templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Use On All WordPress Sites: As long as your site is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the pages you need to add to your site and leave out any unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many features to website owners. Below we have listed just some of those:
- Fast and simple to install and set up. Ready to go to work in no time.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Information – If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you are based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering you from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record and store the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes to populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (even in the pop-ups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Using Compliance Bar
After installing and activating the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured gets added to your WP admin area.
Let’s briefly review these areas …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where your business details can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Business Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to insert the information in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been entered into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen contains all of the templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of template pages made available by the Compliance Bar plugin last time we checked their website:
- About Us
- AdSense Disclaimer
- Affiliate Agreements
- Affiliate Disclosure
- 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
You can easily and quickly create legal pages for your blog or website simply by selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button on the “Compliance Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from 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 …
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 source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can customize and delete your compliance disclaimers in the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing the legal pages 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to display 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 front 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 an unlimited number of Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in different sections of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific WordPress theme framework (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), 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, there is a limit to the number of page icons you can display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have specified your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your compliance pages using a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance bar to display …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other sections of your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want the Pop Ups to display immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying 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 sourced from 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 …
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 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 legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Here are a few of the testimonials that customers have written about the Compliance Bar plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Below are a few additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages of your website only.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If you have adult content on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated support team to help you. Plugin users also have access to complete video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 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 hrs (Monday to Friday), your money will be refunded in double.
Product Licensing Pricing
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on a single domain. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on 25 of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Licensing – Can be installed on all of your own domains. Install the plugin on all client sites as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Current pricing for the Compliance Bar product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the plugin is selling for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly 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 showing how the software works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven sites. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here. 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 wherever your business is based.
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