One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your internet presence has to comply with a wide range of federal, state and even local laws, many of which you may 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 easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your digital presence is an integral aspect of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you will not be accepted into various leading advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
At the very least, without making it clear to your visitors that your web properties comply with legal requirements and guidelines, trust and confidence in your business may seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- The importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or using online, and
- There are inexpensive solutions for WordPress users that can help your website become compliant, such as the plugin that we review below.
In this article, we review a complete compliance and disclaimer plugin for a WordPress-based online presence.
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 website …
More info: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Implement. Ready To Use In Very Little Time.
Compliance Bar is quite easy to install. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Easily Editable Templates
You can easily make changes to the pre-built compliance templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress visual content editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin develop provides a dedicated support team to help users with anything they need.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Compliance Pages: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and an entire library of training videos is provided.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the legal page templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use On All WordPress Sites: If your website is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the templates you need to include in your site and leave out any unnecessary pages.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of great features to web site owners. Here are just some of those features:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Ready to use in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Compliance Bar will display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Information – If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance requirements. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your site from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – The plugin records and stores the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the pop-ups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Using The Plugin
Once the Compliance Bar plugin is installed, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured gets added to your WordPress dashboard.
Let’s go through these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your business information can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” “Company Phone Number,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile into your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been entered into the user profile fields, users can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of the compliance templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 22 legal page templates available, addressing all areas of compliance:
- 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
You can create compliance pages for your website or blog quickly and easily by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Image sourced from 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 default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons are customizable. 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 Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can customize and delete the compliance templates from the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing the compliance templates 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 many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using a specific theme framework (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” WordPress 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 configured your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your compliance pages using a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance bar to be featured …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create a number of customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and store 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 you are based in the EU 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 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” screen …
(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” tab, lists all of your compliance page 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 update notifications …
User Testimonials
Here are a couple of the testimonials customers have submitted regarding the Compliance Bar plugin:
”WOW” 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
Below are a few extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your site includes content for adult readers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated support to help users with anything they need. Users also have access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 200% refund guarantee. If your edition 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 the amount of your purchase price.
Software Price
- Single User Licensing – Install the plugin on a single site. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on all as many of your own domains as you want. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Pricing details of the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the software retails for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual price set by the plugin developer when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For ”how to” videos of the plugin in action, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Get This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites and blogs. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Note: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
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