One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of having broken a law or regulation.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring both financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and easy-to-use WordPress solution that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the internet continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules constantly change, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your online presence is a significant part of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites 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 apps, and you will not be allowed into a number of advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
If you are 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 your online presence is not in compliance, it may affect your visitors trust and confidence about doing any future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to maintain compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or endorsing online, and
- There are solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the solution that we review in this post.
If your website or blog is lacking in aspects of compliance, there is a simple plugin for WordPress users that you should know more about.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your website …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below are just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your site compliant:
Quick Installation
Compliance Bar installs like every plugin. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Legal Page Templates Are Easy To Edit
You can easily make changes to the built-in legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the visual content editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides dedicated plugin support to help users with anything they need.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Compliance Pages: Compliance Bar creates 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 full library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the built-in templates provided with 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: As long as your website is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers that suit your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any templates that are not necessary.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar provides many unique features to website owners. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Be up and running in no time.
- Display Attractive Icons – Display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Content – If your site includes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms or 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 notifying your users and covering your business from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar can record your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes that automatically populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the pop-ups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the web browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
Once the Compliance Bar plugin has been installed, you will 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 categories in this area where you can enter your information into entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Location Details,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to dynamically populate and display the information from your User Profile fields inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area contains all of the pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
When we last checked the plugin website, there were over 20 legal pages available, covering all areas of compliance:
- 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 compliance pages for your site quite easily by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons can be changed. 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: Legal Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can easily edit and delete the legal disclaimers in the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing the legal pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates 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, icon size, selecting which pages should be included 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 offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image source: 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 other areas of 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 specifically 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 legal through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature your compliance icons …
PopUps
If your site includes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that restricts access to users who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab gives you complete control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: 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 throughout your site …
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 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 are based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law …
Compliance Bar 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 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 legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
User Feedback
Below are a few of the testimonials and feedback that plugin customers have provided for Compliance Bar Plugin:
”When I got my hands on Compliance Bar, I knew I needed help to be compliant, but I had no idea how much danger I was in, nor did I know all of the different things I needed to be compliant. Once I installed Compliance Bar, I was able to very quickly add all the items I needed to ensure I didn’t end up getting fined by various agencies, or have my site pulled from Google. The best part is that getting it all set up took only minutes, and I know that I am far safer than I was. Compliance Bar is one of the best plugins I have used in a long time.” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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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)
Plugin Tips
Here are some extra ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your website published content that is deemed inappropriate for underaged viewers, 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 plugin support to help you with anything you need. Plugin users also get access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 day, 200% refund guarantee. If your copy 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 purchase price.
Product Licensing Pricing
- Single User Personal License – Install the plugin on a single site that you own. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Can be installed on twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on all domains that you own. Install the plugin on all client sites as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Pricing details of Compliance Bar Plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software retails for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the product developer when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. 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 a demo video of the plugin, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Important: Once again, please note that 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 fully complies with the law in your country or region.
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