One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your website or blog needs to comply with a whole set of laws and regulations, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering financial losses, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your website compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues growing at breakneck speed and rules are constantly changing, it’s vitally important that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your digital presence is an essential part of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social sites will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed into various leading advertising and merchant networks.
If your website is not compliant, you could end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, without making it clear to your visitors that your website complies with legal requirements and regulations, trust and confidence in your business may be damaged.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or endorsing on your website, and
- There are easy-to-use solutions that can help your website become more compliant, such as the plugin that we review in this post.
If your website or blog lacks in terms of compliance, below we review a simple plugin for WordPress-powered websites and blogs that you may be interested in using.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Legal Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your online presence …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your web site compliant:
Ready To Start Using In No Time
Compliance Bar installs like every other WP plugin. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Easy To Edit Templates
You can easily make changes to the built-in legal templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help users.
Additional benefits of this plugin include:
- Customized Templates: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a complete library of training videos is provided if you need help.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the legal page 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 runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the legal pages you need to include in your site and ignore any unnecessary pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of great features to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icon Bar – Display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Information – If your site has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you are based 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. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and covers your site from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record and store your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes that populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the web browser being used.
Compliance Bar Features – Details
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, you get access to various settings.
Let’s review these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your information can be entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Business Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to populate the information from your User Profile inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of the compliance page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of templates made available by the plugin last time we checked their 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
Creating compliance pages for your blog or website can be easily done. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes 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: Compliance Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can modify and delete your legal pages from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. legal pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have 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 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 Screen: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover different uses in other sections of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using a specific theme (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme settings 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 specified your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your legal through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance bar to show …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create unlimited customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover various uses in different areas of your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want the Pop Ups to display immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and store the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
The plugin 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 disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Testimonials From Users
Here are some of the testimonials and feedback that plugin users have provided for 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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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Below are some extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages of your site.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If you have content that is inappropriate for underaged viewers on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated support team to help users. You also get access to complete video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% refund 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 money will be refunded in double.
Product License Price
- Single – Can be installed on 1 of your own domains. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License Edition – Can be installed on multiple as many of your own sites as you like. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The price of this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the product retails for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing details: Compliance Bar
Additional Info
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Get The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered sites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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