One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to break the law.
Your website or blog must comply with many laws, some of which you may not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering serious financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and very inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your website legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
As the digital realm continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules constantly change, it’s important that you stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains legally compliant, especially if your digital presence is a significant aspect of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social sites could suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed into various other advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
If your website is not compliant, you could face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you are not compliant, it may affect your visitors trust and confidence in doing future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with compulsory federal, state and local laws that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using on your website, and
- There are cost-effective solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your site become compliant, such as the tool that we review in this article.
If your web site falls short in terms of compliance, below we discuss a simple plugin for WordPress users that you should know more about.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-install plugin for WordPress sites with over twenty customizable compliance templates for your digital business …
For more details go here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website compliant:
Be Up And Running In Very Little Time
Compliance Bar is very easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your administrator section and activate.
Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
You can easily make changes to the built-in compliance templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides dedicated plugin support to assist you with anything you need.
Additional benefits of using this plugin include:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - an entire library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the legal page templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used For Every Website Purpose: As long as your website or blog runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Just select the templates you need to add to your site and leave out any unnecessary pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of features to WP users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Ready to use in minutes.
- Display Attractive Icon Bar – The plugin displays links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Content – If you plan to display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU compliance laws. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies users and covers your site from non-compliance.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – The plugin can record and store the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the popups).
- Works On Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the web browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Once the Compliance Bar plugin is installed, the plugin’s “Settings” area gets added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where you can input your business details into input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Business Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Image source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to dynamically insert and display the information from your User Profile into 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 profile fields, you can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of the pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 20 legal pages 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 can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Screenshot 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 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 theme …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can easily customize and delete your legal templates in the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing the compliance pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin will notify you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. 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 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, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses in other sections of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your site, even if you are using particular WordPress themes (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is specifically 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 device screens, there is a limit to the number of page icons you can display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have configured your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your legal using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance icons to show …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), you can display popups that restricts access to users who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your site …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, 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 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 …
Compliance Bar lets you manage the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” area …
(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” tab, lists all of your legal disclaimers and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Feedback
Below are just a few of the testimonials and comments plugin users have published about Compliance Bar Plugin:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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”I wanted to reach out & say Compliance Bar is a truly amazing product for keeping my online marketing efforts on the right side of the internet laws. Not only does it look fantastic on my sites, it is also intuitive and robustly powerful. It is packed full of features to allow me the flexibility to control exactly what my visitors need to see and know” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Below are some useful ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site published content that is deemed inappropriate for persons below a certain age, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated plugin support team to help users with anything they need. Users also have access to an entire library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 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 (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of the purchasing price.
Plugin Price
- Single License Edition – Can be installed on 1 site that you own. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Can be installed on up to twenty-five domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Edition – Can be installed on multiple domains that you own. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: Current pricing for this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin sells for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product developer when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price: Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin
Additional Plugin Info
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal 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, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Our Recommendation
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.
For more information, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.
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