One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring serious financial costs, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress users that can help make your site fully compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules of the game are constantly changing, it’s important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your digital presence is a fundamental part of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed into a number of advertising or merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being exploited by opportunistic people or organizations.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your online properties comply with all legal requirements and regulations, trust and confidence in your business could seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- How important it is to maintain compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or using online, and
- There are solutions that can help your website become more compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
If you suspect that your web site is lacking in aspects of compliance, we discuss below a simple WordPress plugin that you may be very interested in knowing more about.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your online business …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your web site instantly legally compliant:
Ready To Start Using In Very Little Time
Compliance Bar Plugin is very easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your administrator account and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Compliance Page Templates
You can easily edit the built-in legal templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress visual content editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated team to assist users if they experience any difficulties.
Additional benefits include the following:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a complete library of training videos is available.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the built-in legal templates provided in 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 For All Website Purposes: As long as your site runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the templates you need to add to your site and ignore all other unnecessary pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many great features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Sensitive Information – If you plan to publish content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your business from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes to populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Using The Plugin
After installing and activating the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured is added to your WordPress dashboard.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where you can enter your business information into input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Business Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information in your page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been input into the profile fields, users can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section contains all of the plugin’s legal templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
When we last checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 compliance page templates made available:
- 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
Creating legal pages for your website or blog is a simple process. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar icons can be changed. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can modify and delete your compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” section, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing the compliance templates is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin will notify you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, specifying which pages should be included in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your home page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, etc. …
(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 a multitude of uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using a specific theme (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile screens, there is a limit to the number of page icons you can display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have specified your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your legal through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to display the compliance icons …
PopUps
If your site includes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display popups that restricts access to users who do not accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab gives you full control over the settings and wordings of 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 a multitude of uses throughout your site …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, 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 you do business in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements …
Compliance Bar lets you edit the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” section …
(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” section, lists all of your compliance pages and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
User Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials and feedback that plugin customers have provided for the Compliance Bar plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”If you are like me, you maybe have quite a few WordPress sites, all needing attention and most importantly, all needing to be on the right side of the law! I’ve tried several legal pages plugins and in pretty much every case, they let me down. They simply cause more work than they solve.To me, the answer should be simple. It should work and it should let me get on with building my site. After all, I know I NEED to do this stuff, but hey, I don’t really WANT to! So, for me, I don’t want those plugins that cause more work than they solve. Simple eh? Well now it is because Anton & John have just created this baby that is the answer to my needs. The Compliance Bar Plugin does what I need it to do then lets me get on with my empire building…Perfect!” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Below are a few extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your website includes content for adult viewers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated plugin support to assist users if they experience any problems. Users also get access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 200% money-back 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 twice the amount of your purchase price.
Product Cost
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on one of your own sites. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on up to 25 domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License Edition – Install the plugin on all as many of your own domains as you need. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost of purchasing this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the plugin is being retailed for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current price here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. 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, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
What We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article. 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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