One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
Your website or blog has to comply with a whole set of federal, state and even local laws, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring serious financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and cost-effective WordPress solution that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your digital presence is a fundamental part of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed into most leading advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being exploited by opportunistic people or organizations.
At the very least, if your web presence is not compliant, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to be irrepairably damaged.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website.
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 federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- The importance of complying 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 that can help your business become compliant, such as the solution that we review below.
In this article, you will learn about a complete compliance and disclaimer plugin for your site.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple and easy-to-install plugin for WordPress users containing over 20 customizable compliance disclaimers for your online presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your web site compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Use. Ready To Start Using In No Time.
Compliance Bar Plugin is quite easy to install. Simply upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Editable Compliance Page Templates
You can easily make changes to the built-in templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides dedicated support to help users.
Some additional benefits of using the plugin include:
- Customized Legal Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and an entire library of training videos is available.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the default legal page templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used In All Niches: As long as your website is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore those that are irrelevant.
Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of features to site owners. Here are just some of these features:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Be up and running in very little time.
- Display Attractive Icon Bar – Display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Restricted Information – If you plan to publish content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU compliance laws. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying visitors and covering your business from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records and stores your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor mobile browsers.
Features – Details
Once the Compliance Bar plugin has been installed, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured will be added to your WP admin area.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where you can input your business information into input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to dynamically populate the information from your User Profile fields into your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of your compliance pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of legal templates made available by the plugin when we last checked the website:
- 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 compliance pages for your website or blog is a simple process. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button in the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
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 Page Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can easily customize and delete your legal page templates in the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you 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 position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image 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, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create unlimited Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other sections of your website.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using a specific WordPress theme (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 normal “static” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile screens, 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 using a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to display the compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout 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 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 Section: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance laws …
The Compliance Bar 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” area …
(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” screen, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
Feedback From Users
Below are some of the testimonials and comments customers have provided for the Compliance Bar plugin:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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”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 some extra ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If you include content that is deemed inappropriate for persons below a certain age on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated plugin support to assist users if they experience any issues. Plugin users also have access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty 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 hrs (M – F), the plugin developers will refund twice the cost of purchase.
Product License Pricing
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on one of your own sites. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on up to 25 sites that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License – Install the plugin on multiple sites that you own. Can be installed on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Pricing details of the Compliance Bar plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin sells for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual price set by the product seller when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal 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 help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Get The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
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