One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your digital presence has to comply with many laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring serious financial loss, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your site fully compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules of the game are constantly changing, it’s vitally important to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your web presence is an essential part of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites 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 could suspend your apps, and you won’t be allowed into a number of other advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
Plus, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being slapped with a lawsuit.
At the very least, without making it clear to your visitors that your online properties comply with legal requirements and guidelines, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business,
- The importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or endorsing online, and
- There are inexpensive solutions that can help your business become more compliant, such as the plugin that we review in this article.
In this article, you will learn about a complete compliance and disclaimer plugin for a WordPress-based site.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin For WordPress is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
Learn more about this plugin here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website legally compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In No Time.
Compliance Bar installs just like every other plugin. Simply upload a zip folder that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easily Editable Page Templates
You can easily make changes to the built-in compliance templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support Team
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated team to assist you if you experience any issues.
Additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and an entire library of training videos is provided if you need assistance.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the templates provided in Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used For All Niches: As long as your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the pages you want to add to your site and leave out all other unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many unique features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just some of these:
- Quick and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – Compliance Bar will display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Information – If your website publishes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business 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. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and covers your site from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – The plugin can record the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case someone 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, (including the pop-ups).
- Works On Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Compliance Bar Features – Details
After installing and activating the plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” section gets added to your WP backend.
Let’s review these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where your information can be entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Company Phone Number,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to populate and display the information from your User Profile fields inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been entered into the user profile fields, you can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 20 legal page templates available to plugin users:
- 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 compliance pages for your site quickly and easily simply by selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Compliance Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
Icons are customizable. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can easily modify and delete your legal page templates from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing the legal pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates 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 various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, selecting which pages to include an icon for 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 more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other sections of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme (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 “regular” 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 attractive icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance bar to appear …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display popups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create unlimited Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your website …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want the Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, 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 do business in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
The plugin lets you manage the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” tab …
(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” tab, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
Testimonials From Customers
Below are just some testimonials that plugin users have published about Compliance Bar:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Plugin Tips
Here are some extra ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site published adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated support to help users if they experience any problems. You also have access to a complete set 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 double the purchasing price.
Product Licensing Pricing
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on one of your own sites. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Install the plugin on 25 sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License Edition – Install the plugin on all sites that you own. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The cost to purchase the Compliance Bar product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the software is being retailed for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller 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 current pricing: Compliance Bar Plugin
Additional Information
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal page 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 to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For demo videos showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
The Bottom Line
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites and blogs. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Note: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
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