One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of having broken the law.
Your website must comply with a whole set of laws and regulations, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring serious 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 article, we look at a simple and cost-effective WordPress solution that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vital to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your web presence is an integral aspect of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social networks could suspend your applications, and you will not be accepted into many advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
If your online business is not compliant, you could end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your website complies with all legal requirements and regulations, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws and regulations that govern your business,
- How important it is to comply 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-use solutions that can help your site become compliant, such as the plugin that we review below.
If your web site is lacking in areas of compliance, there is a simple plugin for WordPress users you will probably be interested in using.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your web presence …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to make your website or blog instantly compliant:
Be Up And Running In No Time
Compliance Bar Plugin is really easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP admin account and activate.
Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
You can easily make changes to the built-in templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress visual editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support Team
Compliance Bar plugin provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist users with anything they need.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a full library of training videos is available if users need help.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the built-in legal templates provided in 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: As long as your site is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore those that are unnecessary.
Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of great features to WP users. Below we have listed just some:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in no time.
- Display Attractive Icon Bar – Compliance Bar will display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your pages. 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. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – 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. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering you from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – The plugin records and stores your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes to 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).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Compliance Bar Features – Details
Once the Compliance Bar plugin is installed, you have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your information can be entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Business Address,” “Location Details,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information from your User Profile into your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of the plugin’s templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of templates made available by the plugin last time we checked their site:
- 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
Creating compliance pages for your site is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button in the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Screenshot 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 default set of 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 Plugin: Legal Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can modify and delete the compliance pages in the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin will notify you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. legal pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, specifying which pages should be included 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 Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create unlimited Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific theme framework (like 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 screens, you can only select up to a certain number of page icons to display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have configured your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your legal through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance icons to be featured …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display pop-ups 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 – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, 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 be aware of EU Cookie law …
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” section …
(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” area, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
Testimonials From Customers
Below are some of the testimonials that customers have published about the Compliance Bar 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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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Below are a few additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If your site includes 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 help you if you experience any issues. Plugin users also have access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% money-back 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), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of your purchasing price.
Software Pricing
- Single User License – Can be installed on 1 of your own sites. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on multiple sites that you own. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Pricing details of Compliance Bar depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software is selling for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product author when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing information here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Pages Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users 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 ”how-to” videos of the plugin, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Install The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress sites. We recommend downloading and 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 – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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