One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your internet presence has to comply with a wide range of laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring significant financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules are constantly changing, it’s important to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your digital presence is an essential aspect of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and other social sites will suspend your applications, and you will not be accepted into a number of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
Plus, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
At the very least, without making it very clear to your visitors that your site complies with legal requirements and regulations, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(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 are not offering legal advice on our website.
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 and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- 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 endorsing on your website, and
- There are cost-effective solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the solution that we review in this article.
If your website falls short in aspects of compliance, there is a simple plugin for WordPress users you should know more about.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar WordPress Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your site …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
Compliance Bar Plugin is really easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easily Editable Page Templates
Easily modify the prebuilt legal templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress visual editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated team to help users if they experience any issues.
Some additional benefits of using this plugin include:
- Customized Legal Pages: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and an entire library of training videos is provided if users need help.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the default legal page templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Can Be Used On All WordPress Sites: As long as your site runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the templates you want to include in your site and ignore all other irrelevant pages.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many features to WP users. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in no time.
- Show Attractive Icons – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Information – If your website has content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies your visitors and protects your business from non-compliance.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records and stores your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes to automatically populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the mobile browser being used.
Using The Plugin
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured is added to your WordPress admin area.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where you can enter your business details into input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Address,” “Location Details,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to automatically populate and display the information you have input into your User Profile in your page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen lists all of the plugin’s templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of templates made available by the plugin last time we checked the website:
- 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 quickly and easily simply by selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – 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 attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
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: Legal Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can modify and delete your compliance disclaimers in the “Compliance Pages” screen, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing your compliance 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
The plugin offers many 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 offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create unlimited Compliance Bars to display different icons on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using particular 3rd-party 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 “regular” WordPress 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 a visually appealing 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 your website has content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), you can display popups that blocks access to users who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses in different areas of your site …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and 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 your business is based in the EU 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 Compliance Bar 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” screen …
(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 pages and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Feedback
Below are some of the testimonials plugin customers 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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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Below are a few extra ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your website contains content for adults only, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated plugin support team to assist you if you experience any issues. Users also get access to complete video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (M – F), the plugin developers will refund twice the purchasing price.
Software Pricing
- Single Site Licensing – Install the plugin on one domain that you own. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Edition – Can be installed on all as many of your own domains as you like. Install the plugin on all client sites as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The cost to purchase the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin is selling for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the software seller when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Additional Plugin Info
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For ”how-to” videos showing how the plugin works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
In Conclusion
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.
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