One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your website or blog has to comply with a wide range of federal, state and even local 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 cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your website fully compliant in minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
As the cybersphere continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game are constantly changing, it’s vitally important that you stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your online presence is an essential aspect of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed into most advertising or merchant networks.
If your online business is not in compliance, you could face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you are not in compliance, trust and confidence in your business could be damaged.
(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 our website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws and regulations that govern your business,
- The importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using online, and
- There are easy-to-use solutions that can help your business become more compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss in this post.
If you suspect that your website or blog falls short in aspects of compliance, below we discuss a simple WordPress plugin that you should know more about.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-install and simple-to-use plugin for WordPress websites and blogs with over twenty customizable legal disclaimers for your site …
Learn more about the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website compliant:
Quick And Simple To Install And Configure. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar installs like any plugin. Simply upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your admin user account and activate.
Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
Easily make changes to the pre-built templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help users if they experience any difficulties.
Some additional benefits of using this plugin include the following:
- Customized Compliance Pages: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a complete library of training videos is available if you need help.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the default legal page templates provided in Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Use For All Niches: If your site is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers that suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any templates that are unnecessary.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many features to web site owners. Below we have listed just some of those:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – The plugin 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.
- Display Restricted Information – If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User 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. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering you from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the popups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor mobile browsers.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, users have access to a number of sections where you can configure the plugin’s settings.
Let’s go through these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your business details can be input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Address,” “Location Details,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Registered Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile fields inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been entered into the user profile fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen contains all of your templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of legal templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin last time we checked the 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 legal pages for your website can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar icons are customizable. 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 Plugin: Legal Page Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can easily edit and delete your compliance templates from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing 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 you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create unlimited Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using a specific WordPress theme framework (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” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, 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 displays links to your compliance pages through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to display the compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms and 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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create a number of Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your site …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and capture 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 the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws …
The plugin lets you edit 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” area, lists all of your compliance disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials and comments customers have published about Compliance Bar Plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Here are some useful ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If you have content that is considered inappropriate for persons below a certain age on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated support team to help users. Plugin users also have access to a complete library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 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 (Monday to Friday), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Product Pricing
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on one domain that you own. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on up to twenty-five sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License Edition – Can be installed on all of your own sites. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: The price of the Compliance Bar Plugin software can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current pricing at the time this article was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author 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 the current price: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For a demo video showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, 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-powered sites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, 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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