One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your digital presence has to comply with a wide range of federal, state and even local laws and regulations, many of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring serious financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and cost-effective WordPress solution that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital business realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules constantly change, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your online presence is an essential aspect of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your web apps, and you won’t be accepted into a number of other advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
If your digital presence is not compliant, you could end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, without making it clear to your visitors that your website complies with all legal requirements and regulations, trust and confidence in your business may be irrepairably.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: 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 numerous legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws 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 endorsing in your website, and
- There are plugin-based solutions for WordPress users that can help your business become 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 complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your online business.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Below are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your site instantly legally compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Implement. Ready To Start Using In Minutes.
Compliance Bar is quite easy to install. Simply upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WordPress administrator area and activate.
Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
Easily modify the pre-built compliance templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated team to help users with anything they need.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Compliance Templates: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and an entire library of training videos is provided if users need help.
- Use In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the legal templates provided with the plugin 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 site runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the legal pages you want to add to your site and leave out the unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar provides many great features to WP users. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Compliance Bar will display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Content – If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you are based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance laws. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies your visitors and protects your site from non-compliance.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – The plugin can record your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes to automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the popups).
- Works On Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Using Compliance Bar
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, users will then have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where your information can be entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to insert and display the information from your User Profile fields inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been input into the user profile fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of the plugin’s compliance page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of templates made available by the Compliance Bar 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
Creating compliance pages for your website can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of 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 Plugin: Compliance Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can easily customize and delete your legal page templates in the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- 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. compliance pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, 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 main page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in different areas of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your site, even if you are using particular themes (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is 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 legal through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance bar to show …
PopUps
If your website includes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page 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 several customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses in other areas of your website …
You can also set a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
Compliance Bar 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” screen …
(EU Cookies Section: 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 compliance pages and shortcodes, and lets you edit their 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
Here are a few of the testimonials and comments plugin customers have submitted regarding the Compliance Bar Plugin 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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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Compliance Bar – Useful Tips
Here are some extra ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages of your website only.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you publish content for adult viewers on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist you. Plugin users also get access to an entire library 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 business hours (M – F), your money will be refunded in double.
Software Price
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on a single site. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Install the plugin on twenty-five sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Edition – Install the plugin on multiple sites that you own. Can be installed on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: Pricing details of the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing shown above was correct at the time this review was written. This may not be the actual pricing set by the software author when you visit the product site 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
Compliance Bar – Additional Info
Legal Pages Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For a demo video showing how the software 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-driven websites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on this website. 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 in your country or region.
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