One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of breaking the law.
Your digital presence has to comply with numerous federal, state and even local laws, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring significant financial loss, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and easy-to-install 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 breakneck speed and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s important to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains legally compliant, especially if your digital presence is an essential part of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your apps, and you won’t be accepted into many other advertising and merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being slapped with a lawsuit.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your site complies with legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, it could affect your visitors trust and confidence in doing future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to certain 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),
- How important it is to remain 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 plugin-based solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your website become compliant, such as the solution that we discuss below.
If your website or blog lacks in areas of compliance, below we review a simple plugin for WordPress users you will probably be very interested in knowing more about.
Presenting …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-use plugin for WordPress-driven sites with over twenty customizable compliance disclaimer templates for your website …
To learn more about the plugin go here: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar
Here we have listed just some of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website instantly compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Set Up. Ready To Use In No Time.
Compliance Bar is very easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Page Templates Are Easy To Edit
You can easily edit the pre-built compliance page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress visual editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated support to help you.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and an entire library of training videos is available if users need assistance.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the built-in legal page templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Use For Every Website Purpose: As long as your website or blog runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the legal pages you need to add to your site and ignore the unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many features to WordPress users. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Display Attractive Icon Bar – Display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Restricted Information – If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that force users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must 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 protects your site from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar can record and store your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’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 pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the mobile browser being used.
Compliance Bar Features – Details
Once the Compliance Bar plugin has been installed, the plugin’s “Settings” area gets added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where your information can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” “Location Details,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information from your User Profile inside 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 entered into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of your compliance pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
When we last checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 legal templates available to WordPress users:
- 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can easily and quickly create compliance pages for your site by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Create Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of attractive 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can modify and delete your legal pages from the “Compliance Pages” section, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing the legal templates 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
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, selecting 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, and more …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different icons on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, even if you are using particular WordPress themes (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile device screens, 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 displays links to your legal using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance icons 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 content, etc.), you can display pop-ups that blocks access to users who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your site …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying 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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law …
Compliance Bar lets you customize 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 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 legal page 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 Plugin Users
Here are just some testimonials and comments customers have published about the Compliance Bar plugin:
”I got a chance to review the Compliance Bar plugin…WOW!! I have to say that its definitely one of the most NECESSARY, yet easiest to use plugin’s to hit the scene in a while. Very Solid Product. Great job Anton & team!” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Here are some additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages of your website only.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your website published adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated plugin support to assist users with anything they need. You also have access to an entire library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (Monday to Friday), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Product Cost
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on 1 of your own domains. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on 25 domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Can be installed on multiple domains that you own. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Pricing for the Compliance Bar software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current pricing when this review was published. This may not be the actual price charged by the product author when you visit the product site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Additional Plugin Information
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal 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 ”how to” videos showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Install The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Legal 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 is compliant with the law in your country or region.
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