One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of having broken a law or regulation.
Your website needs to comply with various 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 financial loss, 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 review a simple and cost-effective WordPress solution that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules 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 online presence is a fundamental part of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your apps, and you will not be accepted into a range of advertising or merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
At the very least, if your digital presence is not in compliance, trust and confidence in your business could be irrepairably.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with mandatory 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 promoting or using in your website, and
- There are easy solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the tool that we review in this post.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress users that provides a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your online presence.
Presenting …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-install and simple-to-use plugin for WordPress websites with over twenty customizable compliance disclaimers for your digital business …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your site compliant:
Fast And Easy To Install And Use. Ready To Go To Work In No Time.
Compliance Bar Plugin is very easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP admin section and activate.
Easy To Edit Page Templates
Easily modify the pre-built templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated support to assist users with anything they need.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a full library of training videos is provided.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the legal page templates provided with 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 is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Just select the templates you need to include in your site and leave out the irrelevant pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many features to WP users. Below we have listed just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Sensitive Information – If you plan to display content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – 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. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies your visitors and protects your site from non-compliance issues.
- Records & Stores IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records and stores your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the browser being used.
Features – Details
Once you have installed the plugin, users will then have access to various sections where you can configure the plugin’s settings.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can enter your business details into entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Business Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to dynamically insert and display the information into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Screenshot 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 areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section contains all of the plugin’s compliance page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of template pages made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last checked the website:
- 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 legal pages for your blog or website quite easily simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” on the “Create Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar 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 theme …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can edit and delete the legal templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing the legal templates is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to show links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, specifying 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create several Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses in different sections of your website.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme framework (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 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 compliance pages through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to display your compliance icons …
PopUps
If your website has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and capture 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 must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
The 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” tab …
(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” tab, lists all of your legal page templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Testimonials
Here are a couple of the testimonials and feedback plugin users have submitted for Compliance Bar Plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Here are some additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your site published content that is inappropriate for persons below a certain age, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated plugin support to help users. You also have access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your edition 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 the purchasing price.
Plugin Cost
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on one of your own sites. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Can be installed on multiple of your own domains. Can be installed on all client sites as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The cost to purchase the Compliance Bar Plugin product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the pricing when this article was published. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price: Compliance Bar
Additional Info
Legal Pages Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For a demo video of the plugin, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Install The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites and blogs. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website. 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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