One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
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 losses, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we review 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 constantly change, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your online presence is a significant aspect of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social sites could suspend your web applications, and you will not be accepted into most leading advertising or merchant networks.
If your online business is not compliant, 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, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article.
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 that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or using online, and
- There are solutions that can help your website become more compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
In this article, you will learn about a simple WordPress plugin that provides a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your web presence.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence …
Learn more about this plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your site legally compliant:
Installation Is Easy
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like every other WP plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Templates
You can easily modify the pre-built legal page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the visual editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support Team
Compliance Bar provides dedicated support to assist you if you experience any difficulties.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and an entire library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the default legal 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 Website Purposes: As long as your website or blog runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any that you don’t need.
Features
Compliance Bar offers many great features to site owners. Below we have listed just some of these features:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in no time.
- Display Attractive Icons – Display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Information – If your website has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you are 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 displays an attractive bar that notifies your visitors and protects you from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Acceptance – The plugin records the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the popups).
- Works On Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the mobile browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
After installing and activating the plugin, you will 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 fields in this area where your business information can be input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Registered Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to dynamically insert the information from your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the profile fields, users can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area contains all of your pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of templates made available by the plugin when we last 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
Creating legal pages for your site is a simple process. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button in the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Screenshot source: 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 default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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 theme …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can easily customize and delete the legal templates in the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing your compliance pages 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
The plugin settings area provides many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying 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, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific premium theme framework (like 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” 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 configured your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your compliance pages using a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature the compliance icons …
PopUps
If your site includes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that restricts access to users who do not accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section gives you complete control over the settings and wordings of 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 various uses in other sections of your website …
You can also set 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 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 Section: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in Europe 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 Compliance Bar plugin lets you edit the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” section …
(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” screen, lists all of your legal page templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Users
Below are a few of the testimonials 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)
***
”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 some extra ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If you have content that is 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 access your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated plugin support to assist users with anything they need. Users also get access to a complete set of training videos.
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 business hours (M – F), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Product Pricing
- Single Site Personal License – Can be installed on 1 site that you own. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on 25 sites that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Install the plugin on multiple of your own sites. Can be installed on all client sites as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost to purchase the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing above was current at the time this review was written. This may or may not be the actual price set by the software seller when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing: Compliance Bar
Additional Information
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For ”how to” videos showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Install This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress sites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on this website. 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.
***