One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your digital presence must comply with many federal, state and even local laws, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering serious financial losses, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your website fully compliant in minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the internet continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your digital presence is a fundamental component of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and other social networks could suspend your apps, and you will not be accepted into most leading advertising and merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits or legal action.
At the very least, if you are not compliant, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to maintain compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or endorsing on your website, and
- There are solutions for WordPress users that can help your website become compliant, such as the solution that we review in this post.
In this article, you will learn about a simple WordPress plugin that provides a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your site.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar WordPress Plugin is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your website …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Below are just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Easy, Fast & Simple To Install
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like every WP plugin. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP administrator area and activate.
Easily Editable Templates
Easily make changes to the built-in legal page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress visual editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin develop provides a dedicated support team to help you.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a full library of training videos is available.
- Use In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the default legal page templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Use In All Niches: If your website or blog runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers that pertain to your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any templates that you don’t need.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of great features to WP users. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in very little time.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Information – If you plan to publish content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based 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 plugin displays an attractive bar notifying visitors and covering your website from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Acceptance – The plugin can record and store your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
After installing and activating the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured gets added to your WordPress backend.
Let’s review these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can input your business information into entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Location Details,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section contains all of the legal pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of template pages made available by the plugin last time we checked the website:
- 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can easily and quickly create compliance pages for your website by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of attractive 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: Legal Page Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can easily edit and delete the compliance templates from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing your legal pages 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, specifying 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 offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create unlimited Compliance Bars to display different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses in other areas of your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using particular themes (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 “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 compliance pages using a visually attractive 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 needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display popups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area 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 displaying on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and capture the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law …
The plugin lets you manage the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” tab …
(EU Cookies Section: 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 disclaimers and shortcodes, and lets you modify 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 …
User Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials plugin users have submitted for Compliance Bar Plugin:
”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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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Below are some additional ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you have content for adult viewers on your website, 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 support to assist users if they experience any difficulties. Plugin users also get access to complete video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 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 hrs (M – F), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Plugin Price
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on a single domain. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on 25 of your own sites. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Licensing – Install the plugin on all of your own sites. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Pricing details of Compliance Bar depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current price at the time this content was published. This may not be the actual price charged by the software seller when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how to” videos showing how the software works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Download This Plugin
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.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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