One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring significant 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 easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital realm continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your digital presence is an essential component of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, 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 may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you won’t be accepted into a number of other advertising or merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
At the very least, if your online business is not in compliance, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to be seriously diminished.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws that govern your business,
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or endorsing in your website, and
- There are solutions that can help your business become more compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss below.
In this article, you will learn about a complete compliance and disclaimer plugin for your WordPress-based web presence.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple and easy-to-install plugin for WordPress-powered websites with over 20 customizable legal templates for your web presence …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Below are just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your site legally compliant:
Quick And Simple To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar installs like every other plugin. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your admin user section and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Templates
Easily make changes to the built-in compliance templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support Team
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated plugin support team to assist you if you experience any issues.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Templates: The plugin 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 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 legal page templates provided in 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 Website Purposes: As long as your website runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the pages you need to include in your site and ignore all other unnecessary pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – The plugin displays links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Content – If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms or 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. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying visitors and covering your site from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records and stores the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – The plugin uses shortcodes that populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the popups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
After installing and activating the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured is added to your WordPress admin area.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can input your business details into entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information entered into your User Profile fields into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen lists all of your legal template pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of templates made available by the plugin last time we 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can easily and quickly create legal pages for your website or blog simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of attractive 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 Plugin: Legal Page Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can easily customize and delete your legal pages in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing 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 settings area provides many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, 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 main page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and more …
(Compliance Bar Section: 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 site.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using particular themes (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” WordPress 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 through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance bar to show …
PopUps
If your site publishes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your site …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and even 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 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 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 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” tab, lists all of your compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Below are a couple of the testimonials customers have submitted for Compliance Bar:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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”You wouldn’t drive a car around without insurance…so don’t RISK your online business by neglecting a simple, but important detail: website compliance. Grab your copy of Compliance Bar & protect yourself today!” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Useful Tips
Below are a few useful ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If your site published content for adult readers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated support to help users if they experience any issues. Plugin users also have access to an entire library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% refund guarantee. If your version of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 business hours (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund twice the cost of purchasing.
Software Pricing
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on a single domain that you own. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Install the plugin on 25 sites that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Install the plugin on all of your own sites. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Pricing for Compliance Bar Plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing shown above was correct when this content was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the product author when you visit the product site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing details here: Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar – Additional Info
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. 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 a demo video showing how the software works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, 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-powered sites. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this 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 the law in your country or region.
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