One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
Your website needs to comply with various laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring both financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules keep changing, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your online presence is an integral component of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed into a range of advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
At the very least, if your online business is not in compliance, it could affect your visitors trust and confidence about doing business with you in the future.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- The importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or using online, and
- There are solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the plugin that we review in this post.
In this article, we review a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for a WordPress-based web presence.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar WordPress Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your online presence …
To learn more about the plugin go here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website instantly compliant:
Ready To Use In No Time
Compliance Bar is very easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Editable Legal Page Templates
You can easily make changes to the built-in compliance templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the visual editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated plugin support to assist users if they experience any difficulties.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Compliance Page Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - an entire library of training videos is provided.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the default templates provided in Compliance Bar 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: If your website runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the compliance pages you want to add to your site and leave out any irrelevant pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many great features to WP users. Below we have listed just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – The plugin will display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Information – If your site publishes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business 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 that notifies users and covers you from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – The plugin can record the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes that automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor browsers.
Features – Details
Once the Compliance Bar plugin has been installed, the plugin’s “Settings” section will be added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s briefly review these settings …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where you can input your business information into input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to populate and display the information from your User Profile fields in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the user profile fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of your templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
When we last checked the plugin website, there were over 22 legal templates available to plugin users:
- 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
You can easily and quickly create compliance pages for your blog or website by simply selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Image sourced from 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 default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons are customizable. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can easily modify and delete the compliance page templates from the “Compliance Pages” section, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing the legal pages 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have 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 offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in different sections of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using a specific premium theme (like 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” 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 configured your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your legal using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature the compliance icons …
PopUps
If your website publishes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in other areas of your site …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and even record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Section: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in Europe 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 Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” screen …
(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” screen, lists all of your compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Customers
Here are just some testimonials that customers have provided for the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”I wanted to reach out & say Compliance Bar is a truly amazing product for keeping my online marketing efforts on the right side of the internet laws. Not only does it look fantastic on my sites, it is also intuitive and robustly powerful. It is packed full of features to allow me the flexibility to control exactly what my visitors need to see and know” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Here are some additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Ending 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 access your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated team to assist users if they experience any difficulties. Plugin users also get access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 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 hrs (M – F), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Software Cost
- Single Site License – Install the plugin on a single domain. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Can be installed on up to twenty-five sites that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Install the plugin on multiple of your own sites. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The cost of purchasing Compliance Bar can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the price at the time this content was published. This may not be the actual price set 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 Plugin For Website Compliance
Additional Plugin Information
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users 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 for 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.
We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites and blogs. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Note: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law in your country or region.
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