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 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 serious financial costs, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the digital business realm continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules of the game are constantly changing, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your web presence is a fundamental component of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and other social sites will suspend your apps, and you won’t be allowed into most other advertising or merchant networks.
If your online business is not in compliance, you could also face a multitude 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 website complies with legal requirements and guidelines, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article.
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 the laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to be compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or endorsing in your website, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress users that can help your website become compliant, such as the tool that we discuss in this post.
In this article, we review a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for a WordPress-based digital presence.
Presenting …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your web presence …
Learn more about this plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your site instantly compliant:
Quick And Simple To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In No Time.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like any other plugin. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Compliance Page Templates
You can easily make changes to the default legal templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated support team to assist you.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Templates: The Compliance Bar 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.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the built-in legal templates provided in Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Use For Any Website Purpose: If your site is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers that suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore those that are not required.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers many unique features to WordPress users. Here are just some:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Information – If your website includes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you are based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance requirements. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies your visitors and covers your site from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – 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.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes that automatically populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the popups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the browser being used.
Plugin Features – Details
Once you have installed the plugin, users get access to a number of sections where you can configure the plugin’s settings.
Let’s briefly review these pages …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your business information can be input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Address,” “Location Details,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to automatically populate and display the information entered into your User Profile inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the profile fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin last time we 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 can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” on the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons can be changed. 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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can customize and delete your legal pages in the “Compliance Pages” screen, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing the legal pages 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 offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon 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 offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create several Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover different uses in other sections of your website.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using particular premium theme frameworks (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile screens, there is a limit to the number of page icons you can display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have specified your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your legal using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to display your compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying 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 – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance requirements …
The plugin lets you edit the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” tab …
(EU Cookies Screen: 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 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 Users
Below are just a few of the testimonials users have written about the Compliance Bar plugin:
”When I got my hands on Compliance Bar, I knew I needed help to be compliant, but I had no idea how much danger I was in, nor did I know all of the different things I needed to be compliant. Once I installed Compliance Bar, I was able to very quickly add all the items I needed to ensure I didn’t end up getting fined by various agencies, or have my site pulled from Google. The best part is that getting it all set up took only minutes, and I know that I am far safer than I was. Compliance Bar is one of the best plugins I have used in a long time.” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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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)
Plugin Tips
Below are some additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your website contains content for adults only, 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 you if you experience any problems. You also get 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 edition of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 business hours (Monday to Friday), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Plugin Cost
- Single Site License – Can be installed on 1 of your own domains. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on up to 25 of your own sites. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Install the plugin on all sites that you own. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost of purchasing the Compliance Bar Plugin product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the software sells for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the product developer when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for peace of mind.
For ”how to” videos showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Get This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Note: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering 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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