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 breaking the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring significant financial losses and 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 very inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the digital business realm continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game are constantly changing, it’s vitally important to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if your digital presence is a fundamental aspect of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your apps, and you won’t be accepted into many advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits or legal action.
At the very least, if your online business is not in compliance, it may affect your visitors trust and confidence about doing any business with you in the future.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws 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 may be promoting or using on your website, and
- There are plugin-based solutions for WordPress users that can help your website become compliant, such as the plugin that we review below.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress users that provides a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your online business.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple plugin for WordPress users that includes over 20 customizable legal templates for your online business …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website legally compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar is really easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Page Templates Are Really Easy To Edit
Easily make changes to the prebuilt compliance page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress visual editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support Team
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated support team to help you.
Additional benefits of using the plugin include the following:
- Customized Legal Pages: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a full library of training videos is available.
- Use In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the built-in 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 All Website Purposes: As long as your website runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the templates you need to add to your site and leave out the unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in very little time.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Compliance Bar will display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Information – If you plan to publish content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), you can display popups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies your visitors and protects you from non-compliance.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records and stores your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the popups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the web browser being used.
Features – Details
Once the plugin is installed, users will get 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 section where you can input your business details into entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Registered Business Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to automatically populate and display the information from your User Profile fields inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been input into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen contains all of the legal pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of legal templates made available by the plugin last time we 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can create compliance pages for your blog or website quickly and easily by simply selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
Icons can be changed. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily customize and delete the legal templates in the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- 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. compliance pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you 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 “regular” 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 specified your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your legal using a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature your compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that blocks access to users who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create several Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and even record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws …
The plugin lets you edit the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” area …
(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 templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
Testimonials
Here are a couple of the testimonials and comments that plugin users have submitted for Compliance Bar Plugin:
“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)
Plugin Tips
Here are some additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your website only.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site includes 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.
Compliance Bar Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated plugin support team to assist you if you experience any issues. Plugin users also get access to an entire library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty 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 business hours (M – F), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Product License Pricing
- Single User Personal License – Install the plugin on 1 site that you own. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Install the plugin on 25 domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License Edition – Can be installed on all as many of your own sites as you need. Can be installed on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Pricing for this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the software is selling for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual price set by the software developer when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Additional Info
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For a demo video showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Download The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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