One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your internet presence has to comply with a wide range of federal, state and even local laws and regulations, many of which you are probably not even 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 your business 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 website fully compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vitally important that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your online presence is a fundamental part of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social sites could suspend your apps, and you will not be allowed into various other advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits.
At the very least, if your online business is not in compliance, trust and confidence in your business may become an issue.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with mandatory federal, state and local laws that govern your business (some of which you may 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 offering or using in your website, and
- There are easy solutions that can help your website become more compliant, such as the solution that we discuss in this article.
In this article, you will learn about a simple WordPress plugin that provides a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your website …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your site instantly compliant:
Quick And Simple To Install And Set Up. Ready To Go To Work In Minutes.
Compliance Bar is very easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP administrator login and activate.
Page Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
You can easily edit the prebuilt templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated support to help you.
Some additional benefits of the plugin include:
- Customized Legal Templates: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a complete library of training videos is available.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the default templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Use On All WordPress Sites: If your site runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the templates you need to include in your site and leave out any unnecessary pages.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar provides a number of great features to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and set up. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Sensitive Content – If your website publishes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display popups that force users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your website from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – The plugin can record and store the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes to automatically populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the pop-ups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Compliance Bar Features – Details
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, users will get access to various settings pages.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where you can input your business information into input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Registered Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to dynamically insert the information entered into your User Profile into your page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area contains all of the compliance pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of template pages made available by the plugin when we last checked the 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
You can easily create compliance pages for your website simply by selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button in 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 default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar 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 – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can easily edit and delete the legal templates in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to show 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 front page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using a specific premium theme framework (e.g. 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” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile device 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 through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature your compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your website’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 more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your website …
You can also set 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 period, and capture the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law …
The plugin lets you manage 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 legal pages and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Here are just a few of the testimonials and comments users have written about Compliance Bar:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Plugin Tips
Below are a few additional ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before 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.
Compliance Bar Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help you with anything you need. Plugin 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 hrs (Monday to Friday), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Plugin Cost
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on one of your own sites. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Can be installed on up to twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Edition – Can be installed on multiple of your own sites. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Current pricing for the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price above was correct at the time this content was written. This may or may not be the actual price set by the product seller when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing details here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Additional Information
Legal Pages 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 highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, 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-powered websites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.
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