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 isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring significant financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and very inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s important 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 digital presence is a fundamental part of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social sites could suspend your apps, and you won’t be allowed into most advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being slapped with a lawsuit.
At the very least, if your website is not compliant, trust and confidence in your business could be damaged.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to be compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or endorsing on your website, and
- There are plugin-based solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your website become more compliant, such as the solution that we discuss in this post.
In this article, we review a simple WordPress plugin that provides a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your online business.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your site instantly compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Use. Ready To Start Using In No Time.
Compliance Bar is really easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin login and activate.
Easily Editable Legal Page Templates
Easily edit the prebuilt compliance templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated support to assist you with anything you need.
Some additional benefits of using the plugin include:
- Customized Templates: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a complete library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the default legal page templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Can Be Used For All Website Purposes: If your site is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Just select the pages you need to include in your site and ignore unnecessary pages.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of features to website owners. Here are just a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Attractive Icons – Display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Content – If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that force users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – 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. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your business from non-compliance issues.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – The plugin uses shortcodes that automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the mobile browser being used.
Plugin Features – Details
Once you have installed the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured is added to your WordPress backend.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where your business information can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Address,” “Location Details,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to populate and display the information you’ve inputted into your User Profile fields into your page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area contains all of your templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of templates made available by the plugin when we last checked the website:
- 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 compliance pages for your blog or website is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” on the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of attractive 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: Legal Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can customize and delete the legal pages in the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing your legal 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, specifying which pages to include an icon for 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 more …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show 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 front 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 settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” 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 will display links to your legal using a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to display your compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover various uses in different areas of your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, 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 do business 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 edit 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 – 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” section, lists all of your compliance pages and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
Testimonials From Plugin Users
Here are some of the testimonials and feedback customers have written about the Compliance Bar Plugin 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
Plugin Tips
Here are some extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site includes adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist users. Users also have access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty 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 business hours (M – F), the plugin developers will refund twice your purchasing price.
Product Price
- Single – Can be installed on a single site that you own. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Install the plugin on 25 of your own sites. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Install the plugin on multiple as many of your own domains as you need. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Pricing for the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the software is selling for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the product author when you visit the plugin 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 – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Legal Page Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how to” videos showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Download The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven sites. 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 – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.
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