One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering serious financial loss, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your website compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game are constantly changing, it’s important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if your web presence is an integral component of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social sites could suspend your applications, and you will not be accepted into many advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits or legal action.
At the very least, without making it very clear to your visitors that your website complies with all legal requirements and regulations, trust and confidence in your business may be irrepairably.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could 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),
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or endorsing online, and
- There are cost-effective solutions for WordPress users that can help your business become compliant, such as the tool that we review in this article.
If you suspect that your website is lacking in areas of compliance, below we review a simple WordPress plugin you may be very interested in knowing more about.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin For WordPress is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your site …
More info: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Configure. Ready To Go To Work In Minutes.
Compliance Bar is really easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Easy To Edit Templates
You can easily modify the default templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress visual content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support Team
The plugin developers provide dedicated support to assist you if you experience any problems.
Additional benefits of the plugin include the following:
- Customized Compliance Pages: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and a full library of training videos is provided if users need assistance.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the legal page templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Can Be Used For All Website Purposes: If your website runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the compliance pages you want to add to your site and leave out all other unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar provides many features to WP users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Information – If your site includes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and covers your business from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Addresses – The plugin can record and store the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes to automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features – Details
After installing and activating the plugin, you will then get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where your business details can be input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Registered Business Address,” “Location Details,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to automatically populate the information from your User Profile fields into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the profile fields, you can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section contains all of the compliance page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
When we last checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 compliance page templates available, addressing all aspects of compliance:
- 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
You can easily and quickly create compliance pages for your website or blog by simply selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – 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 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: Legal Page Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can easily customize and delete the legal templates from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Page 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. compliance pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to show links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, selecting which pages to include an icon for 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, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image 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 site.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your site, even if you are using particular theme frameworks (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” 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 displays links to your legal using a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature the compliance bar …
PopUps
If your website contains content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), you can display popups that force users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses in different areas of your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying 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 Section: 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 must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you customize 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 Section: Manage Settings – Image 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 templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
Feedback From Users
Here are some of the testimonials and feedback plugin customers have published about Compliance Bar:
”When I got my hands on Compliance Bar, I knew I needed help to be compliant, but I had no idea how much danger I was in, nor did I know all of the different things I needed to be compliant. Once I installed Compliance Bar, I was able to very quickly add all the items I needed to ensure I didn’t end up getting fined by various agencies, or have my site pulled from Google. The best part is that getting it all set up took only minutes, and I know that I am far safer than I was. Compliance Bar is one of the best plugins I have used in a long time.” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Plugin Tips
Below are some additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you have adult content on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist users with anything they need. You also get access to a complete library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 200% money-back 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), your money will be refunded in double.
Software Cost
- Single Site Personal License – Install the plugin on 1 domain that you own. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Install the plugin on twenty-five sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Install the plugin on all as many of your own sites as you like. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: Pricing details of the Compliance Bar Plugin product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the product is selling for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin author when you visit the product 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 Info
Legal Pages Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal 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 for your peace of mind.
For ”how to” videos of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
In Conclusion
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Note: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website. 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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