One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to break the law.
Your website has to comply with a wide range of laws, many of which you may probably not even be 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 reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and very inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your site fully compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues growing at breakneck speed and rules keep changing, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your online presence is an integral component of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social sites will suspend your apps, and you will not be allowed into most leading advertising or merchant networks.
If your website is not in compliance, you could also end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you are not in compliance, trust and confidence in your business may seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Disclaimer: 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 may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or endorsing in your website, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress users that can help your site become compliant, such as the plugin that we review in this article.
In this article, we review a simple WordPress plugin that provides a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your online presence.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-install plugin for WordPress users with over twenty customizable legal templates for your digital presence …
For more details go here: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website or blog compliant:
Fast And Easy To Install And Set Up. Be Up And Running In No Time.
Compliance Bar Plugin is quite easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Legal Page Templates
Easily modify the prebuilt compliance templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support Team
The plugin developers provide dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist you if you experience any problems.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Compliance Page Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and a full library of training videos is available.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the default legal 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 All Website Purposes: If your website or blog runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the pages you want to include in your site and ignore the irrelevant pages.
Features
Compliance Bar provides many features to site owners. Below we have listed just some:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Ready to use in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – The plugin will display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Information – If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), you can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU compliance laws. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying your visitors and covering your website from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – The plugin 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 that automatically populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (even in the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the browser being used.
Plugin Features – Details
Once you have installed the plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” screen is added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s briefly review these sections …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where your information can be entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” “Location Details,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile fields in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen lists all of the plugin’s page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of template pages made available by the plugin when we last checked the site:
- 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can create compliance pages for your blog or website quite easily simply by selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button on the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – 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 comes with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons are customizable. You can purchase an additional set of icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can easily edit and delete the legal disclaimer templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing your compliance pages 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying 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 Section: 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 different uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific 3rd-party theme framework (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme settings 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 legal using a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance icons to be featured …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), you can display pop-ups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your 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 more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other areas of your website …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and even record 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 compliance requirements …
The plugin 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” screen …
(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 legal disclaimers and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Testimonials From Users
Here are a couple of the testimonials that plugin users have published about the Compliance Bar plugin:
”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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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Useful Tips
Below are a few extra ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your website contains content for adults only, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated team to help users if they experience any difficulties. You also get access to an entire set of training videos.
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 (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of your cost of purchasing.
Software Cost
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on 1 of your own domains. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on up to twenty-five domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License Edition – Can be installed on multiple of your own domains. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: Current pricing for the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the product retails for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the software developer when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here: Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin
Additional Plugin Information
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for peace of mind.
For a demo video showing how the software works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Get The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
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