One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering serious financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress users that can help make your website compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital business realm continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules keep changing, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your web presence is an essential component of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social sites could suspend your web applications, and you will not be accepted into most advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
At the very least, if your digital presence is not in compliance, 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 policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using in your website, and
- There are solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your website become compliant, such as the tool that we review in this post.
In this article, you will learn about a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your WordPress-based online business.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin For WordPress is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital business …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website or blog legally compliant:
Really Easy To Install
Compliance Bar is very easy to install. Just upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Compliance Page Templates Are Really Easy To Edit
You can easily make changes to the pre-built legal page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress visual content editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides dedicated plugin support to help users.
Additional benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Pages: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a complete library of training videos is provided if you need assistance.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the built-in templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use For Every Website Purpose: If your site is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the pages you need to include in your site and ignore any irrelevant pages.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar provides many features to site owners. Here are just some of those features:
- Quick and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – The plugin displays links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Information – If your site contains content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that force users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe 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 notifying users and covering your business from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar can record your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – The plugin uses shortcodes that automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the pop-ups).
- Works On Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor browsers.
Features – Details
After installing and activating the plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” section is added to your WordPress admin area.
Let’s review these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where you can input your information into input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Business Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate and display the information you have entered into your User Profile into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been input into the user profile fields, users can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area contains all of the pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
You can create legal pages for your blog or website quickly and easily by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button in the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: 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 is installed with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar 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 Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can modify and delete your legal templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you 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, 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 home page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create several Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific theme (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” 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 using 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 you plan to publish content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create a number of customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover different uses in other sections of your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and capture 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 your business is based in the EU 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 …
Compliance Bar 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” section …
(EU Cookies Section: 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” area, lists all of your compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Feedback
Here are a few of the testimonials customers have submitted regarding the Compliance Bar plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
***
”I wanted to reach out & say Compliance Bar is a truly amazing product for keeping my online marketing efforts on the right side of the internet laws. Not only does it look fantastic on my sites, it is also intuitive and robustly powerful. It is packed full of features to allow me the flexibility to control exactly what my visitors need to see and know” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Useful Tips
Below are a few useful ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you include adult content on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated plugin support to help users. Users also get 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), the plugin developers will refund double your cost of purchasing.
Product Price
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on 1 of your own domains. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Install the plugin on up to 25 domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License Edition – Install the plugin on all of your own domains. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Price details for Compliance Bar Plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. 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 product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Pages Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For demo videos showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Install The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: 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 to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
***