One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
Your internet presence has to comply with a whole range of laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may probably not even 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 good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress users that can help make your site fully compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules are constantly changing, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains legally compliant, especially if your online presence is an essential aspect of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed into various leading advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being slapped with a lawsuit.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your website complies with legal requirements and guidelines, trust and confidence in your business could become an issue.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with mandatory federal, state or local laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using on your website, and
- There are plugins for WordPress users that can help your site become compliant, such as the tool that we review in this article.
In this article, we review a simple plugin for WordPress-driven sites that provides a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your web presence.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital business …
More info: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the 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 Plugin is very easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Templates Are Easy To Edit
You can easily make changes to the default legal page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress visual content editor.
Dedicated Support
The plugin develop provides a dedicated support team to assist users if they experience any issues.
Additional benefits of using this plugin include the following:
- Customized Compliance Page Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and an entire library of training videos is provided.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative 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 anywhere in the world.
- Use In All Niches: If your website is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any pages that you don’t need.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many features to website owners. Here are just some of those:
- Quick and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icons – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Information – If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your business from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes to populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
Once the Compliance Bar plugin has been installed, users will then have 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 section where you can enter your information into entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” “Location Details,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to populate and display the information into your page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been entered into the user profile fields, users can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen contains all of your page templates …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of templates made available by the plugin when we last checked their 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
Creating legal pages for your website or blog can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” on the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of 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: Legal Page Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can easily modify and delete the compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to show 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 home 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 unlimited Compliance Bars to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, even if you are using particular themes (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, you can only select up to a certain number of page icons to display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have configured your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your legal using a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance icons to display …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your website …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and 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 EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance requirements …
Compliance Bar lets you customize the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” screen …
(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” screen, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Users
Here are a couple of the testimonials and feedback users have provided for Compliance Bar:
”I got a chance to review the Compliance Bar plugin…WOW!! I have to say that its definitely one of the most NECESSARY, yet easiest to use plugin’s to hit the scene in a while. Very Solid Product. Great job Anton & team!” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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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)
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Here are a few useful ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site contains adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help you with anything you need. Plugin users also have access to complete video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 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 hours (Monday to Friday), your money will be refunded in double.
Software Cost
- Single License Edition – Install the plugin on a single domain. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Install the plugin on up to 25 of your own sites. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Can be installed on multiple sites that you own. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The cost of purchasing this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price above was correct at the time this article was published. This may or may not be the actual price set by the plugin seller when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For a demo video of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, 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-driven websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: Once again, 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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