One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring serious financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress users that can help make your website fully compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules of the game are constantly changing, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your web presence is a fundamental component of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social networks will suspend your apps, and you will not be accepted into various advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
If your web presence is not compliant, you could face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your digital presence is not in compliance, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or endorsing on your website, and
- There are solutions that can help your site become compliant, such as the solution that we discuss below.
In this article, we review a total compliance & disclaimer plugin for your web presence.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a simple and easy-to-use plugin for WordPress-driven websites that contains over 20 customizable legal disclaimer templates for your digital business …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your web site compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Set Up. Ready To Use In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like every other WP plugin. Simply upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your administrator section and activate.
Editable Page Templates
You can easily edit the pre-built legal templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help you if you experience any issues.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Templates: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a full library of training videos is available if you need help.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the built-in legal 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 On All WordPress Sites: As long as your site is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers that suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any that are irrelevant.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar provides many unique features to WP users. Below we have listed just some of those features:
- Quick and simple to install and implement. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – The plugin will display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Content – If your website publishes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in the EU 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. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying your users and covering your website from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores 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 didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that automatically populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the popups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the mobile browser being used.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features – Details
Once the Compliance Bar plugin has been installed, users will then get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s review these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your business information can be entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” “Location Details,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information you have input into your User Profile fields inside your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen contains all of your pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of legal templates made available by the plugin last time we checked the site:
- 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
Creating legal pages for your website is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button in the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: 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 …
The Compliance Bar icons can be changed. You can purchase additional 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 source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can edit and delete your compliance pages from the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing the compliance templates 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 various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting 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, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, even if you are using a specific premium theme (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is 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 specified your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your legal through 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 you plan to display content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover various uses in other sections of your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying 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 Screen: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in the EU 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 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” 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” tab, lists all of your legal disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
User Testimonials
Below are a few of the testimonials and feedback that plugin customers have submitted regarding Compliance Bar:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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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 extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you publish content that is inappropriate for minors on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated support to assist users with anything they need. Plugin users also get access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your edition of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double the purchasing price.
Software Price
- Single Site Personal License – Can be installed on a single site. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on 25 of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Edition – Can be installed on all of your own sites. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: Pricing details of Compliance Bar Plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the pricing at the time this article was published. This may not be the actual price charged by the software author when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Additional Information
Legal Page Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For demo videos of the plugin in action, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Install The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that 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 wherever your business is based.
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