One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring both financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your website fully compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your digital presence is an integral aspect of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and other social sites will suspend your applications, and you will not be accepted into most advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits.
At the very least, if your digital presence is not in compliance, it may impact on your visitors trust and confidence in doing future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws and regulations that govern your business,
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using online, and
- There are plugins for WordPress users that can help your site become compliant, such as the solution that we review in this article.
If your web site lacks in areas of compliance, there is a simple WordPress plugin that you should know more about.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital business …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your site legally compliant:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
Compliance Bar Plugin is very easy to install. Simply upload a zip folder that contains the plugin to your Plugins folder via your WordPress admin section and activate.
Editable Templates
You can easily modify the built-in legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated support team to help users.
Additional benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Pages: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a full library of training videos is provided.
- 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 with Compliance Bar 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: If your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the templates you need to add to your site and leave out all other irrelevant pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many great features to WordPress users. Here are just some:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Ready to use in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Information – If your site has content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content 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 need to be aware of EU Cookie law. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying your users and covering your site from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Acceptance – The plugin records and stores the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – The plugin uses shortcodes that automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the popups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor web browsers.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured gets added to your WordPress admin area.
Let’s briefly review these …
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,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to automatically populate and display the information from your User Profile fields in your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the profile fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section contains all of your compliance page templates …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
When we last checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 legal page templates made available:
- 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
Creating legal pages for your site can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can easily customize and delete your compliance page templates from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing the legal pages 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 you installed 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, icon size, selecting which pages should be included 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 more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create an unlimited number of Compliance Bars to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in different sections of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific 3rd-party theme framework (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), 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 devices, there is a limit to the number of page icons you can display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have configured your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your compliance pages through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature the compliance bar …
PopUps
If your site includes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display popups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other sections of your website …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display immediately, set a cookie duration 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 Screen: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law …
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 Section: Manage Settings – Image 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 disclaimer 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 receiving plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Plugin Customers
Here are some of the testimonials and comments plugin customers have published about the Compliance Bar plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Below are a few extra ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If your site contains adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help users if they experience any difficulties. Users also get access to video training manuals.
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 hrs (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double the cost of purchase.
Product Licensing Price
- Single Site Personal License – Can be installed on 1 of your own domains. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on twenty-five of your own sites. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Licensing – Install the plugin on multiple of your own domains. Can be installed on any client site as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The price of the Compliance Bar plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price shown above was current when this content was published. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the software author when you visit the product site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Approved 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 professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how to” videos of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Download This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no 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.
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