One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of breaking the law.
Your digital presence needs to comply with a whole set of laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering serious financial loss, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your site fully compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital business realm continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules constantly change, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your web presence is an integral aspect of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain 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 won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed into many other advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being exploited by opportunistic online users.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your website complies with all legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, trust and confidence in your business could become an issue.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here.
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 (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to remain compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or endorsing online, and
- There are plugin-based solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your website become more compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss in this article.
If your website is lacking in areas of compliance, here is a simple plugin for WordPress websites that you will probably be interested in using.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-install plugin for WordPress users with over 20 customizable legal templates for your online business …
More info: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your site compliant:
Quick And Simple To Install And Implement. Ready To Use In No Time.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like any WP plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP administrator section and activate.
Editable Compliance Page Templates
You can easily modify the pre-built templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the visual content editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated plugin support to assist you with anything you need.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Legal Templates: Compliance Bar will create 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.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the legal templates provided in 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 All Website Purposes: As long as your site is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any templates that are not necessary.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar provides many great features to website owners. Below we have listed just some of these features:
- Fast and simple to install and use. Be up and running in no time.
- Show Attractive Icons – The plugin displays links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Content – If your site publishes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies your users and protects your website from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – The plugin records and stores the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the popups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor web browsers.
Using Compliance Bar
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, you will then get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s review these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where your business information can be entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Address,” “Location Details,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Registered Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to populate and display the information from your User Profile inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of your templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of template pages made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last checked the site:
- 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 website or blog simply by selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” on the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(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 comes with a default 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 theme …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can customize and delete your compliance disclaimer templates in the “Compliance Pages” section, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing the legal templates is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. legal 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, image size, specifying which pages to include an icon for in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your front 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 unlimited Compliance Bars to display different icons on different pages, or to cover various uses in other sections of your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, even if you are using particular themes (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is 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 specified 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 your compliance icons to show …
PopUps
If your site has content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display popups that blocks access to users who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create multiple Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in different sections of your site …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and store the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance requirements …
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” tab …
(EU Cookies Screen: 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 legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
User Testimonials
Here are just some testimonials and feedback that plugin users have submitted for the Compliance Bar 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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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Here are some useful 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 only.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If you have content for adult viewers on your site, 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 problems. You also get access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 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 twice the cost of purchase.
Software Cost
- Single User Licensing – Can be installed on a single site. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Install the plugin on up to 25 domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Can be installed on all as many of your own domains as you want. Can be installed on any client site as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Price details for Compliance Bar Plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price shown above was current at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin seller when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. 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 demo videos showing how the software works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Get This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
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