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 internet presence needs to comply with a whole set of federal, state and even local laws and regulations, some of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring serious financial costs, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your business 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 compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
As the cybersphere continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your digital presence is a significant component of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social networks could suspend your web apps, and you won’t be allowed into a range of other advertising or merchant networks.
Plus, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
At the very least, if your website is not in compliance, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 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 a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- How important it is to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or endorsing on your website, and
- There are solutions that can help your business become more compliant, such as the solution that we review in this post.
If you suspect that your web site is falling short in aspects of compliance, here is a simple plugin for WordPress users that you should know more about.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin For WordPress is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital business …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your site instantly compliant:
Installation Is Easy, Fast & Simple
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like every WP plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Easily Editable Compliance Page Templates
You can easily modify the pre-built templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated plugin support team to help you.
Additional benefits of this plugin include:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: The Compliance Bar 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 provided.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the default templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use In All Niches: If your site is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any that you don’t require.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many features to WP users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Ready to use in no time.
- Display Attractive Icons – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Content – If you plan to publish 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 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 make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying visitors and covering your website from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – The plugin can record and store your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that automatically populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the pop-ups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor web browsers.
Features – Details
Once the plugin has been installed, users get access to various settings.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can enter your information into entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Business Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile in your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of the legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of legal templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last checked the site:
- 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
Creating compliance pages for your website can be easily done. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button on the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
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: Legal Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can edit and delete your legal pages in the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing the compliance templates 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
The plugin settings area provides many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to display 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 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 an unlimited number of Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses in other sections of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific 3rd-party 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 “regular” WordPress 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 will display links to your compliance pages through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to display the compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create multiple Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover different 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 a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: 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 need to be aware of EU Cookie law …
The Compliance Bar 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” screen …
(EU Cookies Section: 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” section, lists all of your compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Testimonials From Plugin Users
Here are some of the testimonials and comments customers have published about Compliance Bar:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Plugin Tips
Here are some useful 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.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you have content that is considered inappropriate for underaged viewers on your site, 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 help users. Users also get access to a complete library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 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 (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of your purchase price.
Product License Pricing
- Single – Can be installed on a single domain. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Install the plugin on multiple sites that you own. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Current pricing for the Compliance Bar plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the product retails for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the plugin 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
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert 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 advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For a demo video showing how the software works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Get The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites and blogs. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Note: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer 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 all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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