One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of breaking a law or regulation.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering serious financial loss, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and very inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your website fully compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game are constantly changing, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your web presence is a significant component of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your apps, and you won’t be allowed into a number of advertising or merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
At the very least, if your website is not compliant, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- The importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or using online, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your site become compliant, such as the plugin that we review below.
If you suspect that your website is falling short in terms of compliance, below we discuss a simple plugin for WordPress users you may be interested in knowing more about.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital business …
More info: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website compliant:
Ready To Use In Minutes
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like any WP plugin. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your admin user login and activate.
Easily Editable Page Templates
You can easily make changes to the prebuilt compliance page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress visual editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides dedicated plugin support to assist you with anything you need.
Additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and an entire library of training videos is available if you need help.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the default 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.
- Use For Any Website Purpose: As long as your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the templates you want to include in your site and ignore the unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of features to site owners. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to use in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Compliance Bar will display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Content – If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, 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 users and covering your website from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar can record and store your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the pop-ups).
- Works On Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the browser being used.
Features – Details
Once the Compliance Bar plugin has been installed, you have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s briefly review these settings …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where you can input your business details into entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Registered Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of the plugin’s legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 22 compliance page templates made 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
Creating compliance pages for your website is a simple process. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of 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 Page Templates
You can edit and delete the compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing your compliance pages 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 display 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 more …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using a specific 3rd-party theme (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 normal “static” 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 through dynamic 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 publish content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover different uses in different areas of your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and capture the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Section: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
The Compliance Bar 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” 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 page templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Users
Below are a few of the testimonials users have submitted regarding the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”I got a chance to review the Compliance Bar plugin…WOW!! I have to say that its definitely one of the most NECESSARY, yet easiest to use plugin’s to hit the scene in a while. Very Solid Product. Great job Anton & team!” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”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 extra ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your website only.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you have content for adult viewers on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated support to help you if you experience any issues. You also get access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 hours (Monday to Friday), your money will be refunded in double.
Product Cost
- Single – Can be installed on a single site. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on 25 sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License Edition – Can be installed on multiple as many of your own domains as you want. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The cost to purchase the Compliance Bar plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing shown above was current when this content was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the plugin website 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 – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we strongly 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 showing how the plugin works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
What We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites and blogs. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here. 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.
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