One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering financial losses, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your website fully compliant in minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game are constantly changing, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains legally compliant, especially if your online presence is a fundamental part of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many 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 will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be accepted into many other advertising or merchant networks.
If you are not compliant, 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 your web presence is not compliant, 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!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with compulsory federal, state and local laws and regulations 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 may be offering or using online, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress users that can help your website become more compliant, such as the solution that we review below.
If you suspect that your website or blog is falling short in areas of compliance, there is a simple WordPress plugin that you should know more about.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress sites containing over twenty customizable compliance templates for your online business …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Configure. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like every other plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your administrator section and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Legal Page Templates
Easily modify the pre-built templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support Team
Compliance Bar provides dedicated plugin support to help users.
Additional benefits include the following:
- Customized Legal Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin 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 - a full library of training videos is available.
- 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 built-in legal templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use On All WordPress Sites: If your website or blog is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any templates that you don’t require.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many great features to web site owners. Here are just some:
- Quick and easy to install and set up. Ready to use in no time.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Restricted Information – If your website publishes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying visitors and covering your site from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record and store your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes that populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the popups).
- Works On Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” area is added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where you can input your business information into entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to dynamically insert and display the information from your User Profile inside your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the profile fields, you can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of the templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of legal templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last checked the site:
- 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can easily and quickly create compliance pages for your site simply by selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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: Legal Page Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can easily customize and delete your compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing the legal templates 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 where to position the bar, whether to show 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 front page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using a specific premium theme framework (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 normal “static” WordPress 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 compliance pages through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance bar to display …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
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 …
The 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” section …
(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 pages and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials plugin users have provided for Compliance Bar Plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”You wouldn’t drive a car around without insurance…so don’t RISK your online business by neglecting a simple, but important detail: website compliance. Grab your copy of Compliance Bar & protect yourself today!” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Below are some additional 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 your refund terms before purchase.
- If your site includes adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated plugin support to help you if you experience any issues. You also have access to an entire set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% refund guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (M – F), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Product Pricing
- Single – Install the plugin on one of your own domains. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on twenty-five domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on all as many of your own sites as you want. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Current pricing for the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the plugin sells for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product seller when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar – Additional Info
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For a demo video 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 websites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin
Note: Once again, 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 of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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