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 financial losses, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and easy-to-install solution for WordPress users that can help make your site compliant in minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the digital business realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules constantly change, it’s important that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your digital presence is an integral aspect of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend your apps, and you won’t be accepted into most advertising and merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being slapped with a lawsuit.
At the very least, without making it very clear to your visitors that your site complies with legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, trust and confidence in your business could be irrepairably.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to be compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using in your website, and
- There are plugins for WordPress users that can help your site become compliant, such as the plugin that we review below.
In this article, you will learn about a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your WordPress-based website.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs that contains over 20 customizable legal page templates for your digital presence …
Learn more about the plugin here: Compliance Bar
Benefits
Below are just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your site compliant:
Easy Installation
Compliance Bar Plugin is quite easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your WordPress admin user login and activate.
Easy To Edit Page Templates
Easily modify the built-in legal templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the visual editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated team to help you with anything you need.
Additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Templates: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a full library of training videos is provided.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the built-in 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 On All WordPress Sites: As long as your site is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the compliance pages you want to include in your site and leave out any irrelevant pages.
Features
Compliance Bar provides a number of great features to website owners. Below we have listed just some of these:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icons – Display links to your legal 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 your site contains content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), you can display pop-ups 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 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 notifying your users and covering you from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes to automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the popups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the browser being used.
Compliance Bar Features – Details
Once the Compliance Bar plugin is installed, users will have access to a number of settings pages.
Let’s briefly review these sections …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where your business information can be input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Company Phone Number,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to populate and display the information from your User Profile into your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been input into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen lists all of your page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of template pages made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last checked their 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 website can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” on the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
Icons are customizable. 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 Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can easily modify and delete the compliance disclaimers from the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing your 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. compliance pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers many 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, selecting which pages should be included 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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create multiple Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses in other sections of your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), 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 will display links to your legal using a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance icons to show …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create unlimited customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your site …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and even record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, 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 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” screen, lists all of your legal disclaimer templates 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 receiving plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Users
Here are a few of the testimonials and feedback users have provided for the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Here are some extra ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site contains content that is deemed inappropriate for minors, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated support team to help you if you experience any issues. Plugin users also get access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% refund guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund twice the amount of your cost of purchase.
Software Price
- Single Edition – Can be installed on 1 of your own sites. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on up to 25 of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License – Install the plugin on multiple of your own sites. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Pricing details of the Compliance Bar software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software is being retailed for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the product developer when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Additional Information
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional 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, customer 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-driven sites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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