One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring significant financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules keep changing, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your digital presence is a fundamental aspect of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and other social sites will suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed into various leading advertising or merchant networks.
If you are not compliant, you could end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your online business is not in compliance, trust and confidence in your business may be irrepairably.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to be compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or using online, and
- There are plugin-based solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your business become compliant, such as the tool that we review in this article.
If you suspect that your website lacks in terms of compliance, there is a simple WordPress plugin you should know more about.
Presenting …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-install and simple-to-use plugin for WordPress users with over 20 customizable legal pages for your online presence …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar
Benefits
Below are just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your site instantly compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Use. Ready To Start Using In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like any WordPress plugin. Simply upload a zip folder that contains the plugin to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easy To Edit Page Templates
Easily make changes to the pre-built compliance templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support Team
The plugin developers provide dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist users with anything they need.
Some additional benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a complete library of training videos is available.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative 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.
- Can Be Used For Any Website Purpose: If your site is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the legal pages you need to include in your site and leave out all other irrelevant pages.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of features to web site owners. Below we have listed just some:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icons – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Restricted Information – If your site publishes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying your users and covering your business from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar can record and store 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 populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Compliance Bar Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, users will get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s briefly review these areas …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where you can enter your information into entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Address,” “Location Details,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to insert and display the information from your User Profile fields into your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the user profile fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area contains all of the templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of templates made available by the plugin last time we checked the website:
- 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can easily create compliance pages for your site by simply selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button in the “Compliance Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: 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 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: Compliance Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can easily edit and delete your legal templates from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing the compliance 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 you installed 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 offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses in different areas of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using particular theme frameworks (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 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 configured your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your compliance pages through dynamic 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 your site has content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), you can display pop-ups that restricts access to users who do not accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create unlimited Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover various 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 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 Screen: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
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 …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you edit the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” section …
(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” tab, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Below are just some testimonials that plugin customers have submitted regarding the Compliance Bar plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”If you are like me, you maybe have quite a few WordPress sites, all needing attention and most importantly, all needing to be on the right side of the law! I’ve tried several legal pages plugins and in pretty much every case, they let me down. They simply cause more work than they solve.To me, the answer should be simple. It should work and it should let me get on with building my site. After all, I know I NEED to do this stuff, but hey, I don’t really WANT to! So, for me, I don’t want those plugins that cause more work than they solve. Simple eh? Well now it is because Anton & John have just created this baby that is the answer to my needs. The Compliance Bar Plugin does what I need it to do then lets me get on with my empire building…Perfect!” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Here are some extra ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your website includes adult content, 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 a dedicated team to assist you. You also get access to full video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 business hours (M – F), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Product Price
- Single User Personal License – Install the plugin on one of your own sites. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on 25 domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Install the plugin on all as many of your own domains as you like. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Price details for this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the product sells for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the software seller when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Additional Plugin Info
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading 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 ”how-to” videos showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, 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 sites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our 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 wherever your business is based.
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