One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
Your internet presence must comply with various laws, some of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring significant financial losses and the loss of 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 easy-to-use WordPress solution that can help make your website fully compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your online presence is an essential aspect of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your web apps, and you won’t be accepted into a number of leading advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being slapped with a lawsuit.
At the very least, without making it clear to your visitors that your online properties comply with all legal requirements and guidelines, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that 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 numerous legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- The importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or endorsing on your website, and
- There are solutions that can help your business become more compliant, such as the tool that we review in this article.
In this article, we review a complete compliance and disclaimer plugin for your WordPress-based web presence.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Legal Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your online presence …
Go here to learn more about the plugin: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website or blog legally compliant:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
Compliance Bar installs just like any other WordPress plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your admin user section and activate.
Easy To Edit Compliance Page Templates
You can easily make changes to the built-in compliance page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated plugin support team to help users with anything they need.
Some additional benefits of using this plugin include the following:
- Customized Compliance Templates: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a full library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the default templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Can Be Used For All Niches: If your website or blog is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers that pertain to your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any templates that are unnecessary.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and use. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Sensitive Information – If your site has content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance laws. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying your users and covering your website from non-compliance.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – 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 – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor browsers.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features – Details
Once you have installed 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 section where you can enter your business information into input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to dynamically populate and display the information from your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the user profile fields, you can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen lists all of your compliance page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of templates made available by the plugin last time we 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 site is a simple process. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button in the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside 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 Pages
You can customize and delete the compliance disclaimers in the “Compliance Pages” section, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing 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. compliance pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to display 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 home page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create several Compliance Bars to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific WordPress theme (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 your compliance icons to appear …
PopUps
If your site has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), you can display pop-ups that restricts access to users who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create unlimited Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover various uses in different areas of your site …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and store the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Section: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
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 sourced from 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 legal 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 receiving plugin update notifications …
User Testimonials
Below are a few of the testimonials and feedback plugin users have published about the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Plugin Tips
Here are a few extra ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If your website published adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated support team to assist users. Plugin users also get access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 hrs (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund double the cost of purchasing.
Product Pricing
- Single – Install the plugin on a single site. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on 25 sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Edition – Install the plugin on multiple as many of your own sites as you like. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: Current pricing for Compliance Bar can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price above was current at the time this review was written. This may or may not be the actual price set by the plugin seller when you visit the product 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
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For ”how-to” videos of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, 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 websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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