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 digital presence needs to comply with a whole range of laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering financial costs, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and easy-to-install solution for WordPress users that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules keep changing, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your online presence is an essential aspect of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social sites could suspend your apps, and you won’t be accepted into a range of other advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your online properties comply with legal requirements and regulations, it could affect your visitors trust and confidence about doing any business with you in the future.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
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 many legal requirements in accordance with compulsory federal, state and local laws that govern your business,
- The importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or endorsing on your website, and
- There are solutions that can help your site become compliant, such as the plugin that we review in this post.
In this article, we review a total compliance and disclaimer plugin for your web presence.
Presenting …
Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple and easy-to-use WordPress plugin with over 20 customizable compliance templates for your web presence …
To learn more about this plugin go here: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website or blog legally compliant:
Fast And Easy To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In Very Little Time.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like every plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your admin section and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Templates
Easily make changes to the built-in compliance templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the visual content editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides dedicated plugin support to assist users with anything they need.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Compliance Pages: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a complete library of training videos is provided.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the built-in legal templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Can Be Used In All Niches: As long as your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Just select the compliance pages you want to include in your site and leave out any unnecessary pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many unique features to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Information – If your website contains content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require 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 visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying your users and covering your business from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – 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 they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate the templates 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 individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor web browsers.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
After installing and activating the plugin, users will then have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s briefly review these settings …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where your business details can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” “Location Details,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section contains all of your compliance pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of legal templates made available by the plugin when we last checked the site:
- 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 blog or website can be easily done. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Image 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 is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
Icons can be changed. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can customize and delete the legal templates in the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing 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
The plugin settings area provides various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, specifying which pages should be included in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your main page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create unlimited Compliance Bars to display different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using particular theme frameworks (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” 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 displays links to your compliance pages through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to display your compliance icons …
PopUps
If your website includes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that blocks access to users who do not accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create multiple Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in different sections of your site …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, 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 you do business in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance requirements …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you manage the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” section …
(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” screen, lists all of your compliance pages and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
Testimonials From Plugin Customers
Here are just some testimonials and comments that plugin users have provided for 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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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Here are some extra ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your website only.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If you publish adult content on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated plugin support team to help users. Plugin users also get access to complete video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% refund 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), the plugin developers will refund double your purchasing price.
Software Pricing
- Single Edition – Can be installed on 1 of your own domains. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on 25 of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Install the plugin on multiple sites that you own. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The price of Compliance Bar Plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price shown above was correct when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the plugin 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 – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Additional Plugin Info
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page templates have 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 ”how-to” videos of the plugin, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered 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 details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no 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 all legal requirements in your country or region.
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