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 having broken the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering both financial losses and the loss of 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 very inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your website fully compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules are constantly changing, it’s important that you stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your online presence is a significant aspect of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your apps, and you won’t be allowed into various other advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
At the very least, if your online business is not in compliance, it could impact on your visitors trust and confidence in doing future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering 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 compulsory laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to maintain compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or using online, and
- There are solutions that can help your business become compliant, such as the solution that we review below.
In this article, we review a simple plugin for WordPress websites that provides a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your online business.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use plugin for WordPress websites containing over 20 customizable compliance templates for your online presence …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your site legally compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In No Time.
Compliance Bar is very easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easy To Edit Templates
Easily edit the default legal templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated support team to help users with anything they need.
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 difficult to use and a full library of training videos is provided if users need help.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the default legal templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use For All Website Purposes: If your website runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the legal pages you need to include in your site and leave out all other irrelevant pages.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar offers many unique features to website owners. Here are just some:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Attractive Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Information – If your website publishes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying your users and covering your website from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Addresses – The plugin records your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the popups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the mobile browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Once the plugin has been installed, the plugin’s “Settings” section gets added to your WP admin area.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your business details can be entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Location Details,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to insert and display the information you have entered into your User Profile fields into your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the profile fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section contains all of the plugin’s compliance pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of template pages made available by the plugin last time we 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
You can create legal pages for your website quite easily by simply selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar icons can be changed. 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 Page Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily modify and delete your legal templates in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing your compliance pages 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 various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, icon 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, and more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in different areas of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using particular premium theme frameworks (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile device 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 will display 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 your compliance bar to display …
PopUps
If your website contains content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing 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 – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business 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 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 – 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” area, lists all of your compliance pages and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
Testimonials
Here are a few of the testimonials and comments that plugin customers have written about the Compliance Bar Plugin 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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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar – Useful Tips
Below are a few additional ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers 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 view your content.
Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated plugin support to assist you with anything you need. You also have access to an entire set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty 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 hrs (Monday to Friday), your money will be refunded in double.
Software Cost
- Single Site Licensing – Install the plugin on 1 of your own sites. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on 25 sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Install the plugin on all domains that you own. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The cost to purchase the Compliance Bar software can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing shown above was current at the time this review was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the software author when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Additional Info
Legal Pages Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal templates have already 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 your own peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Install This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress sites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on this website. You must 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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