One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring 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 article, we review a simple and very inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules are constantly changing, it’s important that you stay informed about 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 a significant component of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your apps, and you will not be allowed into many advertising or merchant networks.
Plus, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits.
At the very least, if your online business is not in compliance, trust and confidence in your business may be damaged.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: 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 may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may probably 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 are offering or using online, and
- There are cost-effective plugins for WordPress users that can help your website become compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss in this post.
In this article, you will learn about a total compliance & disclaimer solution for a WordPress-based site.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar – WP Legal Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users that contains over twenty customizable compliance disclaimers for your website …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website instantly legally compliant:
Ready To Use In No Time
Compliance Bar installs just like every plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Easy To Edit Templates
Easily edit the prebuilt templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated plugin support to help users if they experience any problems.
Additional benefits of using the plugin include the following:
- Customized Compliance Page Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - an entire library of training videos is provided.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the templates provided in Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Can Be Used In All Niches: As long as your website is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the pages you want to include in your site and leave out any irrelevant pages.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many unique features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just some of these:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Ready to go to work in very little time.
- Display Attractive Icon Bar – Compliance Bar will display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Content – If you plan to display content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying your visitors and covering you from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – The plugin records and stores your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – The plugin uses shortcodes that populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the popups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the browser being used.
Using The Plugin
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured gets added to your WordPress admin area.
Let’s go through these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where you can enter your business information into entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Company Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to dynamically insert and display the information from your User Profile in your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been input into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of the plugin’s legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 20 legal templates 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 easily and quickly create legal pages for your website or blog simply by selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” on the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons can be changed. 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: Compliance Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can easily edit and delete your legal pages from the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. legal pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to show 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 Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific 3rd-party theme (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), 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 through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature your compliance icons …
PopUps
If your website contains content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that blocks access to users who do not accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create multiple Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover various uses in different areas of your site …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and store 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 are based in Europe 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 …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you manage the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” area …
(EU Cookies Screen: 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 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 getting plugin updates …
User Feedback
Here are just a few of the testimonials and feedback that plugin users have written about the Compliance Bar plugin:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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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
Useful Tips
Below are some extra ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your site contains content for adult viewers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated support team to help you with anything you need. Plugin users also have access to complete video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 200% refund guarantee. If your edition 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 double your purchasing price.
Product Pricing
- Single License Edition – Can be installed on 1 of your own sites. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on up to 25 sites that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License Edition – Can be installed on multiple as many of your own domains as you like. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost to purchase Compliance Bar Plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the product is selling for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual price set by the plugin seller when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Additional Information
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For demo videos showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Install This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven sites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer 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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