One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
Your website has to comply with a wide range of federal, state and even local laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering significant financial losses, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and easy-to-install solution for WordPress users that can help make your website fully compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital realm continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your digital presence is an integral aspect of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your web apps, and you will not be allowed into a range of advertising or merchant networks.
Plus, you could 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 web properties comply with legal requirements and regulations, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to be irrepairably damaged.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to remain compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or endorsing online, and
- There are plugin-based solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your website become more compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss in this post.
In this article, you will learn about a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your WordPress-based site.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
For more details go here: Compliance Bar
Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website or blog legally compliant:
Ready To Go To Work In Minutes
Compliance Bar Plugin is quite easy to install. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your admin user area and activate.
Editable Page Templates
Easily make changes to the pre-built templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated plugin support team to help you with anything you need.
Additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Pages: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and 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 templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Can Be Used On All WordPress Sites: As long as your site is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the pages you want to include in your site and leave out all other irrelevant pages.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in very little time.
- Display Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar will display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Sensitive Content – If you plan to publish content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force 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 visitors in the EU, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies users and protects your site from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar can record the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – The plugin uses shortcodes that populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the popups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor browsers.
Plugin Features – Details
Once you have installed 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 categories in this screen where your information can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” “Contact Phone,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to automatically insert the information from your User Profile in your page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen lists all of your pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 20 compliance pages available for complying with online business laws and regulations:
- 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 site 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” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – 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 is installed with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can customize and delete the legal disclaimer templates in the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing your legal 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 you installed 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, icon size, specifying 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 offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create an unlimited number of Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, even if you are using particular premium theme frameworks (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 “regular” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, 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 through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance bar to show …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create a number of customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your website …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and store the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is 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 …
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” tab …
(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” screen, lists all of your compliance disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Here are a few of the testimonials users have submitted for 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)
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”You wouldn’t drive a car around without insurance…so don’t RISK your online business by neglecting a simple, but important detail: website compliance. Grab your copy of Compliance Bar & protect yourself today!” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Below are a few additional ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you include content that is considered inappropriate for underaged viewers on your website, 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 a dedicated plugin support team to help you. You also have access to a complete library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 200% refund guarantee. If your version of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (M – F), the plugin developers will refund twice the amount of your purchase price.
Product Licensing Price
- Single License Edition – Can be installed on a single site. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Install the plugin on 25 sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on all sites that you own. Install the plugin on all client sites as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The cost to purchase Compliance Bar depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current price at the time this content was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the software seller when you visit the product site 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 – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Additional Plugin Info
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For demo videos showing how the software works, including help documentation 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 websites. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that 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 is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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