One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your website must comply with a wide range of federal, state and even local laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring significant financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your website legally compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules are constantly changing, it’s vitally important that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your digital presence is a fundamental component of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social networks could suspend your web apps, and you will not be accepted into a range of leading advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
If your online business is not in compliance, you could end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you are not compliant, visitors may 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 and guidelines!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or using on your website, and
- There are solutions that can help your site become compliant, such as the solution that we discuss in this post.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites that provides a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your website.
Presenting …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your web presence …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your site instantly compliant:
Fast And Easy Installation
Compliance Bar installs just like every WP plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easily Editable Legal Page Templates
Easily edit the default legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated support to help users.
Additional benefits include the following:
- Customized Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a full library of training videos is provided.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the default legal templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used On All WordPress Sites: As long as your website or blog is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the templates you need to include in your site and ignore irrelevant pages.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just some of these features:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – The plugin displays links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Sensitive Information – If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying your visitors and covering your site from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records and stores the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes to populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the web browser being used.
Using The Plugin
After installing and activating the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured will be added to your WP backend.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where your information can be entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to insert the information into your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been entered into the user profile fields, users can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area lists all of your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of template pages made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
Creating compliance 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 “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – 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 icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily modify and delete your compliance page templates from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing the legal pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to show links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, specifying which pages should be included in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your front page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create a number of Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses in different areas of your site.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using particular themes (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” 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 will display links to your compliance pages through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to display the compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section 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 for different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your website …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and even record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws …
The plugin lets you customize the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” tab …
(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” area, lists all of your compliance disclaimers and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
User Testimonials
Here are a few of the testimonials that customers have published about the Compliance Bar Plugin 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)
Plugin Tips
Here are a few useful ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If your website includes content that is deemed inappropriate for underaged viewers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated support to assist you if you experience any problems. Users also have access to complete video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 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 hours (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund twice the purchase price.
Software Cost
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on a single domain. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on 25 of your own sites. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Licensing – Can be installed on all of your own domains. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost of purchasing the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price shown above was correct when this review was written. This may not be the actual pricing set by the software developer when you visit the plugin website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Additional Information
Legal Pages 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 highly 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, customer 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-driven websites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
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