One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to break the law.
Your website or blog has to comply with a number of laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering financial costs, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your site legally compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues growing at breakneck speed and rules keep changing, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if your online presence is a fundamental part of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and other social networks will suspend your apps, and you will not be accepted into most leading advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your web properties comply with legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, it may affect your visitors trust and confidence in doing future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws and regulations 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 are promoting or using on your website, and
- There are solutions for WordPress users that can help your business become more compliant, such as the solution that we review in this article.
In this article, you will learn about a total compliance and disclaimer solution for a WordPress-based website.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a simple and easy-to-use WordPress plugin that includes over twenty customizable compliance templates for your digital presence …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Ready To Go To Work In Very Little Time
Compliance Bar Plugin is quite easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your administrator account and activate.
Editable Compliance Page Templates
Easily edit the prebuilt legal page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG content editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated plugin support team to assist you if you experience any issues.
Additional benefits include:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and an entire library of training videos is available.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the built-in legal templates provided with 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: If your site is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any pages that are not required.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icon Bar – The plugin displays links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed on different locations in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Content – If your site has content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you are based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your website from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes that automatically populate compliance 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 – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor web browsers.
Using The Plugin
Once you have installed the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured will be added to your WordPress admin area.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your business details can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to insert and display the information you have input into your User Profile inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been input into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of the templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
When we last checked the plugin website, there were over 22 compliance templates 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
You can create legal pages for your website or blog quickly and easily by simply selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button in the “Compliance Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar icons can be changed. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can edit and delete the legal disclaimer templates in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing the legal templates 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting 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, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different icons on different pages, or to cover various uses in other areas of your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific premium theme framework (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” WordPress 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 displays links to your legal using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance bar to appear …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create several customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in other sections of your site …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and store the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Section: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
The Compliance Bar 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” screen …
(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 compliance page templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
Testimonials
Below are a couple of the testimonials and comments that plugin users have written about Compliance Bar 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
Below are some useful ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If your site published content that is deemed inappropriate for underaged viewers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated support to help users if they experience any issues. You also get access to an entire library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (M – F), the plugin developers will refund twice the amount of your purchase price.
Software Price
- Single – Can be installed on one of your own domains. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Install the plugin on multiple domains that you own. Can be installed on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Price details for Compliance Bar can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the product is selling for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the software author when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have 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 ”how-to” videos of the plugin, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Download The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
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 is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.
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