One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your digital presence has to comply with numerous laws, some of which you may not be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering both financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
As the cybersphere continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vitally important to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your digital presence is a significant component of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (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 won’t let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed into many advertising and merchant networks.
Plus, you could 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 site complies with all legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, trust and confidence in your business may become an issue.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with compulsory federal, state or local laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to remain compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using online, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress site owners that can help your website become compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress users that provides a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your web presence.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar WordPress Plugin is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Installation Is Easy & Fast
Compliance Bar is very easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your admin section and activate.
Legal Page Templates Are Really Easy To Edit
You can easily edit the default templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the visual content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support Team
The plugin developers provide dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help you.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Compliance Templates: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a full library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the 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 In All Niches: 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, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any pages that are not required.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides a number of features to web site owners. Here are just some:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your legal pages using 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 publish content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that force users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, 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 users and protects your website from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Acceptance – The plugin can record the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes to automatically populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the popups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor mobile browsers.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
After installing and activating the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured gets added to your WP admin area.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your business information can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” “Location Details,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of the plugin’s compliance templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of templates made available by the plugin when we last checked their 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 compliance pages for your website or blog can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” on the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Legal 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 default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons are customizable. 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: Legal Page Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can easily modify and delete your legal disclaimers from the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to show 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, and more …
(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 site.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using particular 3rd-party theme frameworks (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 device 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 complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature the compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab 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 displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other areas of 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 capture 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 are based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
Compliance Bar lets you customize 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” screen, lists all of your legal page templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Testimonials From Users
Below are some of the testimonials that plugin users have published about the Compliance Bar plugin:
”One of the most annoying parts about building out a site is to make sure it complies with the law. I always leave this part to the end because its painfully dry and boring and frankly I always just wished their was an easier way. Then I came across Compliance Bar and its literally the most versitile and brilliant plugin I have ever used. All my pages meet FTC requirements now and all I had to do was press a button! Anton and Jon..you guys friggen rock — 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 to use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If your site contains content for adults only, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated plugin support to help users with anything they need. Users also have access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 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 hours (Monday to Friday), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Software Pricing
- Single – Can be installed on a single domain that you own. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Install the plugin on twenty-five sites that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Install the plugin on multiple as many of your own domains as you need. Can be installed on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The price of the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the pricing when this article was published. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product author when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing: Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Additional Information
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. 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 a demo video of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
What We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress sites. We recommend downloading and 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 Plugin – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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