One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of breaking the law.
Your digital presence has to comply with a whole range of federal, state and even local laws, some of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring serious financial losses, but also the cost to 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 easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your website legally compliant in minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues growing at breakneck speed and rules are constantly changing, it’s vitally important that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your online presence is an integral component of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your apps, and you won’t be accepted into many leading advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
If your website is not in compliance, you could face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you are not compliant, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(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 cannot offer legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- The importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or using online, and
- There are plugin-based solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your business become compliant, such as the tool that we discuss below.
If your website is lacking in areas of compliance, there is a simple plugin for WordPress users that you should know more about.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Legal Plugin
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin For WordPress is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your site …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to make your web site instantly legally compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Configure. Ready To Use In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin is very easy to install. Simply upload a zip folder containing the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Legal Page Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
Easily modify the default templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist you if you experience any issues.
Additional benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Page Templates: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and a complete library of training videos is available.
- Can Be Used 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 wherever your business is located.
- Can Be Used On All WordPress Sites: As long as your website is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any that are not required.
Features
Compliance Bar offers many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – The plugin will display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Information – If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies your visitors and covers your site from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with 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 popups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the mobile browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” section is added to your WordPress dashboard.
Let’s briefly review these areas …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where your business information can be entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to insert the information into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been input into the user profile fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of the plugin’s pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 22 compliance templates available, addressing all areas of compliance:
- 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 blog or website simply by selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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 Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can easily modify and delete your compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance 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. legal pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting 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 more …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover different uses in other areas of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your site, 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 specified your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your compliance pages through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to display your compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), you can display popups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create multiple customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in different sections of your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and capture 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 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” section …
(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” screen, lists all of your compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
Feedback From Plugin Users
Below are some of the testimonials plugin customers have written about Compliance Bar:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Below are some extra ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If you have content for adult viewers on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated support team to assist users if they experience any difficulties. Plugin users also get access to an entire library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 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 business hours (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund double your cost of purchasing.
Product Licensing Pricing
- Single License Edition – Install the plugin on a single domain. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Can be installed on twenty-five domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Can be installed on multiple sites that you own. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Price details for the Compliance Bar software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the product sells for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the product seller when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal 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 to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For a demo video showing how the software works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
The Bottom Line
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
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