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 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 loss of 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-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your site fully compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the digital business realm continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules are constantly changing, it’s important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your online presence is a significant part of your overall 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 will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social networks could suspend your web apps, and you won’t be accepted into a number of other advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits.
At the very least, without making it clear to your visitors that your website complies with legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to be seriously affected.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we offer no 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 federal, state or local laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- The importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or endorsing online, and
- There are plugins for WordPress website owners that can help your website become compliant, such as the solution that we discuss in this article.
If your website or blog is lacking in aspects of compliance, here is a simple plugin for WordPress users that you may be interested in using.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
For more details go here: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Below are just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your web site compliant:
Be Up And Running In No Time
Compliance Bar installs like every plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Editable Legal Page Templates
You can easily make changes to the built-in compliance templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG content editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides dedicated support to help users with anything they need.
Additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Legal Templates: 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.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Can Be Used For All Niches: If your website is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any pages that are unnecessary.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers many great features to web site owners. Here are just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Ready to go to work 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 on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Content – If your website includes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and covers you from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – The plugin records your visitors’ IP address 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 that populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor browsers.
Using The Plugin
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, you will have access to various settings.
Let’s review these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can input your business details into input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to dynamically insert and display the information from your User Profile inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been entered into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area contains all of the page templates …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of legal templates made available by the Compliance Bar 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 website quickly and easily simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button on the “Create Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance 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 default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
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: Compliance Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can modify and delete the legal pages from the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing the compliance templates is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have 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, specifying which pages to include an icon for 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 Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create unlimited Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover different uses in other areas of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, even if you are using particular 3rd-party themes (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” 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 will display links to your legal using a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature the compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that restricts access to users who do not accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover different uses in other areas of your website …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and record 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 you are based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law …
Compliance Bar lets you customize the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” screen …
(EU Cookies Screen: 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” tab, lists all of your compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials that plugin customers have published about Compliance Bar Plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Below are some extra ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you include adult content on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated plugin support team to assist you with anything you need. You also get access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 200% money-back 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), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of your cost of purchasing.
Product Pricing
- Single – Can be installed on a single domain that you own. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Install the plugin on up to 25 domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Install the plugin on all sites that you own. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Pricing details of the Compliance Bar Plugin software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the software is selling for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the software 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 current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Download The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven sites. We recommend downloading and 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
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website. You must 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 wherever your business is based.
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