One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring financial costs, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and easy-to-use WordPress solution that can help make your website fully compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules are constantly changing, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your online presence is an integral aspect of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you will not be accepted into a range of other advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits or legal action.
At the very least, without making it very clear to your visitors that your web properties comply with legal requirements and guidelines, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering 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 compulsory federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business,
- The importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using on your website, and
- There are easy-to-install solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the solution that we discuss in this article.
In this article, you will learn about a simple WordPress plugin that provides a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your online presence.
Presenting …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple and easy-to-install plugin for WordPress-driven websites with over twenty customizable legal disclaimer templates for your online presence …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar
Below we have listed just some of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to make your website instantly legally compliant:
Ready To Use In No Time
Compliance Bar Plugin is really easy to install. Simply upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Editable Page Templates
You can easily make changes to the prebuilt legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the visual content editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help users with anything they need.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a complete library of training videos is available.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use For Any Website Purpose: If your website runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the pages you want to include in your site and leave out irrelevant pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of great features to site owners. Here are just some of these features:
- Quick and simple to install and implement. Ready to use in very little time.
- Show Attractive Icons – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Sensitive Information – If your site publishes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – 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. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying your visitors and covering you from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Acceptance – The plugin records 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 – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (even in the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the web browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” screen gets added to your WP admin area.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where you can enter your business information into entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Business Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to insert and display the information from your User Profile fields in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been entered into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen contains all of your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of legal templates made available by the plugin last time we 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
Creating compliance pages for your website can be easily done. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button on the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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: Legal Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can customize and delete the legal templates in the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. legal pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to display 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 home page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different icons on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using particular theme frameworks (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically 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, 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 legal using a visually attractive 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 you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: 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 a Pop Up to display immediately, set a cookie duration 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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you edit the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” section …
(EU Cookies Section: 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” tab, lists all of your compliance page templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Feedback
Below are a couple of the testimonials customers have written about the Compliance Bar Plugin 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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”I wanted to reach out & say Compliance Bar is a truly amazing product for keeping my online marketing efforts on the right side of the internet laws. Not only does it look fantastic on my sites, it is also intuitive and robustly powerful. It is packed full of features to allow me the flexibility to control exactly what my visitors need to see and know” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Below are a few useful ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your website published content that is inappropriate for minors, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated team to help you if you experience any issues. Users also get access to an entire set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 business hours (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund twice the amount of the cost of purchasing.
Software Pricing
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on 1 of your own sites. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Install the plugin on 25 domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License Edition – Can be installed on multiple domains that you own. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Current pricing for Compliance Bar can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the product is being retailed for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author 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 Plugin
Additional Info
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how-to” videos showing how the plugin works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
What We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress sites. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin
Note: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.
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