One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of having broken a law or regulation.
Your digital presence has to comply with various laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering significant financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and very inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the internet 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 digital presence is a fundamental component of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces 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 many other social networks could suspend your apps, and you will not be allowed into many leading advertising and 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 all legal requirements and guidelines, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to be seriously affected.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
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 compulsory laws and regulations that govern your business,
- The importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or endorsing online, and
- There are solutions that can help your website become more compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
If you suspect that your web site is falling short in aspects of compliance, we review below a simple WordPress plugin you should know more about.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your online business …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website or blog compliant:
Quick & Easy Installation
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like any plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your admin account and activate.
Easy To Edit Page Templates
You can easily modify the pre-built legal page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated team to assist you with anything you need.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Legal Pages: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a full library of training videos is provided.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the default legal page templates provided in Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Can Be Used For Every Website Purpose: If your site is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any templates that are unnecessary.
Features
Compliance Bar provides a number of features to WP users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in very little time.
- Display Attractive Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Information – If you plan to display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – 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 displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and protects your business from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar can record and store your visitors’ IP address for 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 site, (even in the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the mobile browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
Once the plugin has been installed, the plugin’s “Settings” area will be added to your WP backend.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where you can enter your business details into entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to dynamically populate and display the information in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the user profile fields, users can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen lists all of your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 22 legal templates available to plugin 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 legal pages for your website is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” on the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in 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 theme …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily customize and delete the compliance templates from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, specifying which pages to include an icon for 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other areas of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using particular 3rd-party theme frameworks (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme itself 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 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 to feature the compliance icons …
PopUps
If your website includes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), you can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create a number of customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses in other sections of your site …
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 store the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
Compliance Bar 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” area …
(EU Cookies Screen: Manage Settings – Screenshot 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 edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Users
Below are some of the testimonials and feedback that plugin customers have submitted for 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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”If you are like me, you maybe have quite a few WordPress sites, all needing attention and most importantly, all needing to be on the right side of the law! I’ve tried several legal pages plugins and in pretty much every case, they let me down. They simply cause more work than they solve.To me, the answer should be simple. It should work and it should let me get on with building my site. After all, I know I NEED to do this stuff, but hey, I don’t really WANT to! So, for me, I don’t want those plugins that cause more work than they solve. Simple eh? Well now it is because Anton & John have just created this baby that is the answer to my needs. The Compliance Bar Plugin does what I need it to do then lets me get on with my empire building…Perfect!” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Plugin Tips
Here are some extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If you publish content that is deemed inappropriate for persons below a certain age on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist users. Users also get access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 (Monday to Friday), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Product License Price
- Single License Edition – Install the plugin on 1 site that you own. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on up to 25 domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on multiple sites that you own. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The cost of purchasing Compliance Bar can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the software is selling for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual price set by the plugin seller when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Additional Plugin Information
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how to” videos of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Download The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites and blogs. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.
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