One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to break the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering financial loss, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your website compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules are constantly changing, it’s important that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your web presence is a fundamental part 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, financial disclaimers, etc.), many 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 withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your apps, and you won’t be accepted into a range of leading advertising or merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your website complies with legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, it may affect your visitors trust and confidence in doing any future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with mandatory federal, state and local 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 may be promoting or using online, and
- There are easy solutions that can help your website become compliant, such as the tool that we discuss below.
In this article, you will learn about a complete compliance and disclaimer plugin for your web presence.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-install and simple-to-use plugin for WordPress users containing over twenty customizable compliance page templates for your site …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your site legally compliant:
Fast And Easy To Install And Configure. Ready To Start Using In Minutes.
Compliance Bar is quite easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Easily Editable Templates
You can easily modify the pre-built legal templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the visual editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help users if they experience any difficulties.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Legal Pages: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a full library of training videos is available.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the built-in legal page templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Use On All WordPress Sites: As long as your website is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the pages you need to add to your site and ignore unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of features to WP users. Here are just a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Compliance Bar displays links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Sensitive Content – If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and covers your business from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar can record your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the pop-ups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the web browser being used.
Features – Details
After installing and activating the plugin, users will have access to various sections where you can configure the plugin’s settings.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where you can input your information into input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Business Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to automatically populate the information in your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the user profile fields, users can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of the templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
When we last checked the plugin website, there were over 22 compliance templates available to plugin 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
Creating compliance pages for your website or blog can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” in the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – 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 built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar icons can be changed. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can easily customize and delete the compliance templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing your compliance pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. legal pages created before you installed 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 main page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create an unlimited number of Compliance Bars 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 (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, 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 displays links to your legal through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature the compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and even record 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 your business is based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to 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” tab …
(EU Cookies Section: Manage Settings – Image sourced from 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 page templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
User Feedback
Below are just a few of the testimonials that users have submitted for Compliance Bar:
”When I got my hands on Compliance Bar, I knew I needed help to be compliant, but I had no idea how much danger I was in, nor did I know all of the different things I needed to be compliant. Once I installed Compliance Bar, I was able to very quickly add all the items I needed to ensure I didn’t end up getting fined by various agencies, or have my site pulled from Google. The best part is that getting it all set up took only minutes, and I know that I am far safer than I was. Compliance Bar is one of the best plugins I have used in a long time.” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Here are some extra ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your website published adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated support team to assist users. Plugin users also get access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty 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 cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Product Licensing Cost
- Single User Personal License – Can be installed on one of your own domains. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on up to twenty-five sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Install the plugin on multiple as many of your own sites as you want. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Pricing details of the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin retails for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the software developer when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price here: Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Pages Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For demo videos of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Our Recommendation
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Note: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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