One of the worst things that can happen to you 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, some of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering significant financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your website legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules constantly change, it’s important that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your web presence is an integral component of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal 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 may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed into a range of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
If your business online is not in compliance, you could also end up facing a multitude 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 site complies with all legal requirements and regulations, it could impact on your visitors trust and confidence in doing future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
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 may be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to remain compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or using in your website, and
- There are solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss in this article.
In this article, you will learn about a total compliance & disclaimer plugin for your WordPress-based online presence.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence …
Learn more about the plugin here: Compliance Bar
Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website or blog legally compliant:
Ready To Use In Minutes
Compliance Bar Plugin is really easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Easy To Edit Compliance Page Templates
Easily edit the built-in templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress visual editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help users with anything they need.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Customized Legal Pages: The Compliance Bar plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and a complete library of training videos is provided if users need assistance.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the built-in templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Use For All Niches: If your website or blog is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the templates you need to add to your site and leave out all other unnecessary pages.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of great features to web site owners. Below we have listed just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in no time.
- Show Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Content – If your site publishes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you are based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies users and protects your business from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record and store your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the popups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the mobile browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
After installing and activating the plugin, users will then get access to a number of settings pages.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where your information can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to populate and display the information from your User Profile fields in your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of your compliance page templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 22 compliance pages available for complying with online business laws and regulations:
- 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
Creating compliance pages for your website is a simple process. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” on the “Create 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 is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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: Legal Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily modify and delete the legal disclaimers in the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin will notify you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides many 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 home 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 multiple Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using a specific theme (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” 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 through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance icons to show …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section lets you fully customize 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 multitude of uses throughout your website …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want the Pop Ups to display immediately, 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 Section: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in Europe 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 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 Screen: 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” tab, lists all of your compliance pages and shortcodes, and lets you edit 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 update notifications …
User Testimonials
Here are a couple of the testimonials and comments plugin users have published about 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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”You wouldn’t drive a car around without insurance…so don’t RISK your online business by neglecting a simple, but important detail: website compliance. Grab your copy of Compliance Bar & protect yourself today!” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Below are a few useful ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If you include content that is deemed inappropriate for persons below a certain age on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated support team to assist users. You also get access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your version of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double your purchase price.
Plugin Cost
- Single – Can be installed on a single domain. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on twenty-five 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 as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Price details for the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the price at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing details here: Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For a demo video showing how the software works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven 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 Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Note: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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