One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your website or blog needs to comply with a whole set of federal, state and even local laws, many of which you may not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering significant financial losses, but also the cost to 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 easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your site compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your online presence is a fundamental component of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social sites could suspend your apps, and you will not be accepted into most advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If your website is not in compliance, you could also end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your online business is not in compliance, visitors could 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 policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with mandatory 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 remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or using online, and
- There are inexpensive solutions that can help your website become compliant, such as the tool that we discuss in this post.
In this article, you will learn about a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your WordPress-based site.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-install and simple-to-use plugin for WordPress sites with over 20 customizable legal templates for your online presence …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website or blog compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Set Up. Ready To Go To Work In Minutes.
Compliance Bar installs just like any regular WP plugin. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your admin section and activate.
Editable Templates
You can easily edit the prebuilt legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated support team to help users with anything they need.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Templates: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and an entire library of training videos is available.
- Use In All Countries: 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 anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used For Every Website Purpose: If your website or blog runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers that suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any that you don’t need.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of features to website owners. Below we have listed just some:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Ready to start using in very little time.
- Show Attractive Icon Bar – Display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Content – If your site contains content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying your users and covering you from non-compliance.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes that automatically 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).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the browser being used.
Using The Plugin
Once the plugin is installed, users get access to a number of settings pages.
Let’s briefly review these pages …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can enter your business details into input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information you have input into your User Profile fields into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area contains all of the templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 legal page templates available, covering 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 create legal pages for your blog or website quickly and easily simply by selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of 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: Legal Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can easily edit and delete the compliance disclaimer templates in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting which pages should be included 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from 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 lets you display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, even if you are using a specific premium theme (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” 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 configured your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your legal through dynamic 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 your site publishes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want the Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Section: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you edit the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” screen …
(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” tab, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials and feedback that customers have published about Compliance Bar:
”When I got my hands on Compliance Bar, I knew I needed help to be compliant, but I had no idea how much danger I was in, nor did I know all of the different things I needed to be compliant. Once I installed Compliance Bar, I was able to very quickly add all the items I needed to ensure I didn’t end up getting fined by various agencies, or have my site pulled from Google. The best part is that getting it all set up took only minutes, and I know that I am far safer than I was. Compliance Bar is one of the best plugins I have used in a long time.” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”I wanted to reach out & say Compliance Bar is a truly amazing product for keeping my online marketing efforts on the right side of the internet laws. Not only does it look fantastic on my sites, it is also intuitive and robustly powerful. It is packed full of features to allow me the flexibility to control exactly what my visitors need to see and know” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Here are some additional ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you publish content for adult readers on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated plugin support team to assist you. You also get access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 hrs (Monday to Friday), your money will be refunded in double.
Software Pricing
- Single License Edition – Can be installed on one of your own domains. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five of your own sites. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on multiple of your own domains. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost to purchase the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing shown above was current at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the software author when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Additional Info
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. 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 ”how-to” videos of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
In Conclusion
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here. 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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