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 isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring financial loss, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and very inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your website fully compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
As the digital realm continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game are constantly changing, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your online presence is a fundamental part of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and other social networks will suspend your apps, and you will not be allowed into a range of advertising or merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits or legal action.
At the very least, without making it clear to your visitors that your digital properties comply with legal requirements and regulations, it may affect your visitors trust and confidence in doing any future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws and regulations that govern your business,
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or using in your website, and
- There are inexpensive plugins for WordPress website owners that can help your site become compliant, such as the solution that we review in this post.
If your website is falling short in terms of compliance, there is a simple plugin for WordPress websites that you will probably be interested in using.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Legal Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-use plugin for WordPress-powered sites with over twenty customizable legal templates for your online presence …
To learn more about this plugin go here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website compliant:
Ready To Go To Work In Minutes
Compliance Bar installs like every WP plugin. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your WordPress administrator login and activate.
Templates Are Really Easy To Edit
You can easily make changes to the pre-built compliance templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress visual content editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated plugin support team to assist users.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Templates: Compliance Bar 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 a complete 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 legal page templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Can Be Used On All WordPress Sites: If your website or blog is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the pages you want to include in your site and ignore irrelevant pages.
Features
Compliance Bar provides many features to WordPress users. Here are just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Ready to use in very little time.
- Show Attractive Icons – Display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere in your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Sensitive Content – If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you are based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies your visitors and protects your site from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Acceptance – 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.
- Shortcodes – The plugin uses shortcodes to automatically populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (even in the pop-ups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Using Compliance Bar
Once the plugin is installed, you will have access to a number of settings pages.
Let’s briefly review these settings …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where your business details can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Registered Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Refund Period,” 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)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to automatically populate the information from your User Profile fields in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the user profile fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of the pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
When we last checked the plugin website, there were over 20 compliance page templates available to plugin users:
- 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
Creating legal pages for your website or blog is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button on the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your WordPress 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 are customizable. 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 Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can easily edit and delete your legal disclaimers in the “Compliance Pages” screen, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have 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 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 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 various uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using particular 3rd-party theme frameworks (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically 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 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 will display links to your legal through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature your compliance bar …
PopUps
If your website publishes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want the Pop Ups to display immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and even record 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 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 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” section, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
Testimonials From Customers
Here are a few of the testimonials and comments that plugin users have published about the Compliance Bar plugin:
”One of the most annoying parts about building out a site is to make sure it complies with the law. I always leave this part to the end because its painfully dry and boring and frankly I always just wished their was an easier way. Then I came across Compliance Bar and its literally the most versitile and brilliant plugin I have ever used. All my pages meet FTC requirements now and all I had to do was press a button! Anton and Jon..you guys friggen rock — 1000% highly recommend this!!” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Useful Tips
Below are some additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your website only.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If your site published content that is inappropriate for minors, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated support to help you with anything you need. Plugin users also have access to full video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 day, 200% refund guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 business hours (Monday to Friday), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Product Licensing Price
- Single License Edition – Can be installed on a single site. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on twenty-five of your own sites. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License Edition – Can be installed on all as many of your own domains as you want. Can be installed on all client sites as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost to purchase Compliance Bar can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the product retails for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin author when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Additional Information
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page templates have already 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, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Our Recommendation
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress sites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
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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