One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to break the law.
Your internet presence has to comply with various laws and regulations, some of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering serious financial losses, 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 inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your site legally compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vital to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your web presence is an essential component of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not 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 won’t be allowed into various advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
At the very least, if your digital presence is not in compliance, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with compulsory federal, state or local laws and regulations 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 are offering or endorsing online, and
- There are cost-effective solutions for WordPress site owners that can help your business become compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss in this post.
If your web site lacks in aspects of compliance, there is a simple WordPress plugin you may be interested in knowing more about.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your web presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Here we have listed just some of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website or blog compliant:
Ready To Use In Minutes
Compliance Bar Plugin is quite easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Compliance Page Templates
You can easily edit the pre-built templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated support to help users.
Additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Page Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a complete library of training videos is available.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the default templates provided in Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Use For Every Website Purpose: As long as your website is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers that suit your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore those that you don’t need.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many features to site owners. Here are just some:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Information – If your website publishes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you are based in Europe 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 plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and protects your site from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – The plugin can record and store the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes to populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the browser being used.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, users have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s briefly review these sections …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where you can input your information into entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to automatically populate the information you have entered into your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been entered into the profile fields, users can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of the legal pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 compliance templates available to WordPress users:
- 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
You can create legal pages for your blog or website quickly and easily simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar 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: Compliance Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can modify and delete your legal page templates in the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- 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 various 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, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image source: 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 the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), 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 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 compliance pages using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to display the compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that may 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.
The “Create Pop Up” tab gives you complete control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other sections of your website …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and capture 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 your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you manage 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 Screen: 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” section, lists all of your legal disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Testimonials
Below are just a few of the testimonials plugin customers have submitted regarding Compliance Bar Plugin:
”One of the most annoying parts about building out a site is to make sure it complies with the law. I always leave this part to the end because its painfully dry and boring and frankly I always just wished their was an easier way. Then I came across Compliance Bar and its literally the most versitile and brilliant plugin I have ever used. All my pages meet FTC requirements now and all I had to do was press a button! Anton and Jon..you guys friggen rock — 1000% highly recommend this!!” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Useful Tips
Below are a few additional 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.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If you have adult content on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help you with anything you need. Users also get access to complete video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 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 hours (Monday to Friday), your money will be refunded in double.
Product Price
- Single License Edition – Install the plugin on 1 of your own sites. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on up to 25 sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Licensing – Install the plugin on all of your own domains. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: The price of this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the product is selling for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin developer when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing information: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Additional Info
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin in action, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
The Bottom Line
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites and blogs. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law in your country or region.
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