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 various laws and regulations, some of which you may not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering financial losses, 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-use WordPress solution that can help make your site compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules are constantly changing, it’s important that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your digital presence is a significant component of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal 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 for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your apps, and you won’t be accepted into most advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If you are not compliant, you could end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, without making it clear to your visitors that your site complies with legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, trust and confidence in your business may seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- How important it is to maintain compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or endorsing online, and
- There are easy solutions that can help your business become more compliant, such as the plugin that we review below.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress websites and blogs that provides a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your online business.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple and easy-to-use plugin for WordPress sites that contains over 20 customizable compliance disclaimer templates for your online presence …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Below are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your site compliant:
Easy & Fast To Install
Compliance Bar is quite easy to install. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Page Templates
You can easily modify the built-in templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress visual content editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated support to assist you with anything you need.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Legal Pages: The Compliance Bar plugin 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 - a full library of training videos is provided 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 ascertain if 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 powered by 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.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar provides many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just some:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Attractive Icon Bar – The plugin displays links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Information – If your site has content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe 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 protects your business from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – The plugin can record and store the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the browser being used.
Plugin Features – Details
After installing and activating the plugin, users will then get access to various settings pages.
Let’s go through these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your information can be input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to populate the information in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been entered into the profile fields, users can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen lists all of the legal template pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 20 legal pages made available:
- 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 create compliance pages for your site quickly and easily by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button on the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from 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 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: Compliance Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can modify and delete your compliance page templates from the “Compliance Pages” section, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon 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, and more …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using particular themes (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile 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 a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to display your compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that restricts access to users who do not accept your site’s terms or 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 source: plugin documentation)
You can create several Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your website …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and store 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 are based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance laws …
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” tab, lists all of your compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
Testimonials From Users
Below are a few of the testimonials customers have written about Compliance Bar Plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”If you are like me, you maybe have quite a few WordPress sites, all needing attention and most importantly, all needing to be on the right side of the law! I’ve tried several legal pages plugins and in pretty much every case, they let me down. They simply cause more work than they solve.To me, the answer should be simple. It should work and it should let me get on with building my site. After all, I know I NEED to do this stuff, but hey, I don’t really WANT to! So, for me, I don’t want those plugins that cause more work than they solve. Simple eh? Well now it is because Anton & John have just created this baby that is the answer to my needs. The Compliance Bar Plugin does what I need it to do then lets me get on with my empire building…Perfect!” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Here are a few additional ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you include content that is considered inappropriate for minors on your site, 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 plugin support to assist you with anything you need. You also have access to complete video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% refund guarantee. If your version 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 your purchase price.
Software Pricing
- Single – Install the plugin on a single site. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on 25 of your own sites. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Licensing – Install the plugin on multiple domains that you own. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Price details for the Compliance Bar Plugin software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current pricing at the time this review was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the software 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
Additional Plugin Information
Legal Pages Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users 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 to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how-to” videos showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Our Recommendation
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites and blogs. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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