One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to break the law.
Your digital presence must comply with various laws, some of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering both financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules keep changing, it’s vitally important that you stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is a significant part of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you will not be accepted into most other advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
At the very least, without making it very clear to your visitors that your site complies with legal requirements and regulations, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal 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 could be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- The importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or endorsing in your website, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress users that can help your site become more compliant, such as the tool that we discuss below.
In this article, we review a simple WordPress plugin that provides a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your site.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-install and simple-to-use WordPress plugin that includes over 20 customizable legal templates for your website …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website compliant:
Installation Is Easy
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like every plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP admin user account and activate.
Editable Page Templates
You can easily edit the built-in templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help you with anything you need.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Legal Templates: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a full library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the default 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 In All Niches: If your website is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the pages you want to add to your site and leave out irrelevant pages.
Features
Compliance Bar offers many features to WordPress users. Here are just some:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Ready to start using in no time.
- Show Attractive Icons – The plugin will display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Information – If your site contains content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you are based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies users and covers your site from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – The plugin records the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (even in the pop-ups).
- Works On Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the mobile browser being used.
Using The Plugin
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured is added to your WordPress admin area.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where your business details can be input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Company Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information you’ve inputted into your User Profile into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been entered into the user profile fields, you can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen lists all of your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Here’s 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 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
Creating legal 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 on the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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 theme …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily modify and delete the legal templates in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting which pages to include an icon for 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 Section: 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 a multitude of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using a specific 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 normal “static” 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 will display 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 site 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 popups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create several Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover a range of uses in different sections of your website …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing 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 – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
The plugin 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 disclaimers and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
User Testimonials
Below are just a few of the testimonials and feedback that customers have written about Compliance Bar:
”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)
***
”You wouldn’t drive a car around without insurance…so don’t RISK your online business by neglecting a simple, but important detail: website compliance. Grab your copy of Compliance Bar & protect yourself today!” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Plugin Tips
Below are some additional ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site includes content for adult viewers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated support team to assist users. Users also get access to an entire library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 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 hrs (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of your cost of purchasing.
Plugin Pricing
- Single User Licensing – Install the plugin on a single domain. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on 25 domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License Edition – Can be installed on all of your own domains. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Current pricing for this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin sells for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the software developer when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar – Additional Info
Legal Pages Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For demo videos showing how the plugin works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Get The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites and blogs. We recommend 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 – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Important: 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 is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
***