One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering financial costs, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we review 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 cybersphere continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules of the game are constantly 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 online presence is a significant part of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your web apps, and you won’t be accepted into a number of other advertising and 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 legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, it could affect your visitors trust and confidence about doing any future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this article 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 (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 easy solutions for WordPress users that can help your website become more compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
If you suspect that your website or blog falls short in terms of compliance, here is a simple WordPress plugin you should know more about.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your website …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your site instantly compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Use. Ready To Use In No Time.
Compliance Bar installs just like every other WordPress plugin. Simply upload a zip folder that contains the plugin to your Plugins folder via your WordPress admin login and activate.
Easily Editable Legal Page Templates
You can easily make changes to the prebuilt legal templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated plugin support team to assist users.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - an entire library of training videos is available if you need assistance.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the default templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use In All Niches: As long as your website is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Just select the pages you need to include in your site and leave out all other unnecessary pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of great features to WordPress users. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar will display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Content – If your website includes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance laws. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies users and covers your business from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – The plugin can record your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – 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, (including the popups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features – Details
Once the plugin has been installed, you will then have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where your information can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” “Location Details,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to dynamically insert the information you have input into your User Profile fields inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the user profile fields, you can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section contains all of your compliance pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of legal templates made available by the plugin when we last checked their site:
- 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
You can easily and quickly create legal pages for your blog or website simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button in the “Create Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons can be changed. 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: Compliance Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can modify and delete the compliance page templates in the “Compliance Pages” section, just like any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin will notify you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, specifying 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 more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically 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 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 using a visually appealing 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 contains content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout 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 displaying again within a specific time interval, and capture the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Section: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in Europe 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 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 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” screen, lists all of your compliance page templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Users
Below are a few of the testimonials plugin customers have provided 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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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar – Useful Tips
Below are some useful ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your website published content for adult viewers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help you if you experience any difficulties. Users also have access to complete video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 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 business hours (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double the purchasing price.
Software Cost
- Single – Install the plugin on one of your own sites. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License – Install the plugin on all as many of your own domains as you want. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Price details for the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin retails for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual price set by the product developer when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar – Additional Info
Legal Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal page 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 a demo video of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Install This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites and blogs. 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 – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website. 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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