One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering significant financial losses, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and cost-effective 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 to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules constantly change, it’s important that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is an essential part of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your apps, and you will not be accepted into most leading advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
If your website is not compliant, you could face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, without making it very clear to your visitors that your digital properties comply with all legal requirements and guidelines, trust and confidence in your business could be damaged.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with compulsory federal, state and local 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 endorsing on your website, and
- There are inexpensive solutions for WordPress site owners that can help your site become compliant, such as the tool that we discuss in this article.
If you suspect that your website lacks in aspects of compliance, here is a simple plugin for WordPress-powered websites and blogs you should know more about.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar WordPress Plugin is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your online presence …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your site compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Set Up. Ready To Go To Work In Minutes.
Compliance Bar installs just like any plugin. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Easy To Edit Templates
Easily modify the default templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support Team
Compliance Bar provides dedicated plugin support to help users if they experience any problems.
Additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Legal Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a full library of training videos is available if users need assistance.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the built-in templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Can Be Used For All Niches: If your website runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the compliance pages you want to add to your site and ignore all other unnecessary pages.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many great features to WordPress users. Here are just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Ready to use in no time.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Content – If your website 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 require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU 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 that notifies your users and protects your site from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Addresses – The plugin records the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes to automatically populate the 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 – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the mobile browser being used.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features – Details
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” area will be added to your WordPress dashboard.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where your business details can be input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Registered Business Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Image source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information you’ve inputted into your User Profile into your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section contains all of the plugin’s templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of templates made available by the plugin when we last checked the 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
You can easily and quickly create compliance pages for your blog or website by simply selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
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: Legal Page Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can easily edit and delete your legal disclaimer templates from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just like any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. legal pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to show links or icon images, background colors and images, image 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create unlimited Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, even if you are using particular 3rd-party themes (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile screens, you can only select up to a certain number of page icons to 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 appealing icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to display your compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that blocks access to users who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab 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 multiple customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and store the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements …
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” area …
(EU Cookies Screen: Manage Settings – Screenshot 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” section, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit 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
Here are some of the testimonials that plugin customers have submitted regarding the Compliance Bar plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
***
”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Below are a few extra ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If you publish 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 view your content.
Compliance Bar Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated plugin support to assist users if they experience any difficulties. You also have access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% refund guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 business hours (Monday to Friday), your money will be refunded in double.
Plugin Cost
- Single – Can be installed on 1 of your own domains. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Install the plugin on up to 25 of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Licensing – Install the plugin on all sites that you own. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Price details for the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the product is being retailed for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here: Compliance Bar
Additional Plugin Information
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly 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 plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Install 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.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
***