One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering significant financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and easy-to-install solution for WordPress users that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules are constantly changing, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if your web presence is a significant aspect of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your apps, and you will not be allowed into many other advertising or merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your site complies with legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, it could impact on your visitors trust and confidence in doing business with you in the future.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern your business,
- The importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or endorsing in your website, and
- There are plugin-based solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your business become more compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss below.
If you suspect that your website or blog is falling short in areas of compliance, we review below a simple WordPress plugin you will probably be interested in knowing more about.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple plugin for WordPress users containing over 20 customizable legal disclaimers for your online presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to make your site instantly legally compliant:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like any regular plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Templates Are Easy To Edit
Easily edit the pre-built compliance page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the visual editor.
Dedicated Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated support to assist you.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- 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 and a complete library of training videos is available if users need help.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the default 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 In All Niches: If your website or blog is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any templates that you don’t require.
Features
Compliance Bar provides many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to use in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icon Bar – Display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Restricted Content – If your site includes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – 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. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying visitors and covering your business from non-compliance.
- Record And 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 otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes that populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (even in the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor web browsers.
Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, users will then have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your business details can be entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Address,” “Location Details,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate the information you have entered into your User Profile fields in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of the templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of template pages made available by the plugin when we last checked their website:
- 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
You can create legal pages for your blog or website quite easily by simply selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button on the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons can be changed. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can easily edit and delete your compliance disclaimers in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing the compliance pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates 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 position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, specifying which pages should be included 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 more than one Compliance Bar to display different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in different sections of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your site, even if you are using particular premium theme frameworks (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” 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 will display links to your legal through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to display the compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create a number of customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other sections of your website …
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 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 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 manage 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 – 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” area, lists all of your legal disclaimers and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Users
Below are a couple of the testimonials and feedback customers have published about the Compliance Bar plugin:
”One of the most annoying parts about building out a site is to make sure it complies with the law. I always leave this part to the end because its painfully dry and boring and frankly I always just wished their was an easier way. Then I came across Compliance Bar and its literally the most versitile and brilliant plugin I have ever used. All my pages meet FTC requirements now and all I had to do was press a button! Anton and Jon..you guys friggen rock — 1000% highly recommend this!!” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
***
”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 Tips
Here are a few useful ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your website includes adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist users. You also get access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 200% refund 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 twice the cost of purchase.
Product Licensing Pricing
- Single – Install the plugin on one domain that you own. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on twenty-five domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Install the plugin on all as many of your own domains as you need. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Price details for the Compliance Bar plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the product sells for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the product 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 pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Additional Information
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal 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 to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For a demo video showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress sites. 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 Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Note: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
***
