One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your digital presence has to comply with a number of laws and regulations, many of which you may not be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring both financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your site fully compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s vitally important to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your digital presence is a fundamental part of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social networks will suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed into a number of advertising or affiliate merchant 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 are not compliant, trust and confidence in your business may become an issue.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations 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 are promoting or using in your website, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress users that can help your business become compliant, such as the solution that we discuss below.
In this article, we review a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your online business.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin For WordPress is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your site …
Go here to learn more about this plugin: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your web site legally compliant:
Easy, Fast & Simple To Install
Compliance Bar installs just like any plugin. Simply upload a zip folder that contains the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your admin section and activate.
Editable Compliance Page Templates
You can easily make changes to the pre-built legal page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated plugin support to help users with anything they need.
Additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a full library of training videos is available if users need assistance.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the default legal templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used On All WordPress Sites: If your website or blog 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 ignore irrelevant pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many great features to website owners. Below we have listed just some:
- Fast and simple to install and use. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed on different locations in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Content – If your site contains content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), you can display popups that force users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you are based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying your visitors and covering you from non-compliance issues.
- Records & Stores IP Addresses – The plugin can record the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes to populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the popups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor browsers.
Using Compliance Bar
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, you have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s briefly review these pages …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where you can input your information into entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Company Phone Number,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to populate the information in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the profile fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen contains all of the plugin’s compliance templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of legal templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin last time we 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
Creating compliance pages for your blog or website is a simple process. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button on the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of 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 Plugin: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can edit and delete the compliance pages in the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing 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
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image 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 other sections of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your site, even if you are using a specific 3rd-party theme (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile device screens, you can only select up to a certain number of page icons to display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have specified your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your compliance pages through a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance bar to display …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that blocks access to visitors 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 Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create several Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display immediately, 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 sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
The plugin lets you manage the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” area …
(EU Cookies Section: Manage Settings – Image sourced from 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 compliance page 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 updates …
Testimonials
Below are a few of the testimonials that users have published about the 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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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Useful Tips
Below are a few extra ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages of your site.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you publish content for adult viewers on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist you with anything you need. Users also get access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty 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 hrs (M – F), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Plugin Pricing
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on a single site that you own. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Can be installed on twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Edition – Install the plugin on multiple as many of your own domains as you need. Install the plugin on all client sites as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The cost to purchase Compliance Bar Plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the plugin retails for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin seller when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For ”how-to” videos showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
In Conclusion
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites and blogs. We recommend 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 – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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