One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your website or blog has to comply with various laws and regulations, some of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring both financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and easy-to-install solution for WordPress users that can help make your website compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the digital business realm continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game 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 online presence is an integral part of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like 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 will suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed into most leading advertising and merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being slapped with a lawsuit.
At the very least, if your website is not in compliance, trust and confidence in your business may seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to maintain compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or using on your website, and
- There are solutions that can help your site become compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
If your web site is lacking in terms of compliance, there is a simple WordPress plugin that you may be interested in using.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple and easy-to-use plugin for WordPress-powered websites and blogs containing over 20 customizable legal pages for your digital presence …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your website instantly compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin is very easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your WP admin login and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Legal Page Templates
You can easily modify the pre-built templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the visual editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated plugin support team to assist users if they experience any issues.
Additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Templates: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a complete library of training videos is available if users need assistance.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the default legal page templates provided in Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used For Any Website Purpose: As long as your site is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers that pertain to your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any templates that are unnecessary.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers many features to WordPress users. Here are just some of those features:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Ready to use in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icons – The plugin displays links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Information – If your site includes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying your users and covering your website from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes to populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the pop-ups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the mobile browser being used.
Plugin Features – Details
After installing and activating the plugin, you have access to a number of sections where you can configure the plugin’s settings.
Let’s review these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can input your information into input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to dynamically populate the information from your User Profile fields inside your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been entered into the user profile fields, you can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of the plugin’s templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of legal templates made available by the plugin when we last checked their 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
- XXX Disclosure
Creating compliance pages for your website can be easily done. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar 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 theme …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily edit and delete the legal disclaimer templates from the “Compliance Pages” section, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing 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 offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying 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 offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create a number of Compliance Bars to show different disclaimers 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 site, even if you are using a specific 3rd-party theme framework (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, 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 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 display the compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create multiple customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other areas of your site …
You can also set 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 period, and capture 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 the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU compliance requirements …
Compliance Bar lets you manage 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 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” tab, lists all of your legal disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Below are just some testimonials and feedback customers have written about Compliance Bar:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Below are a few extra ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you have adult content on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated team to assist users with anything they need. You also have access to an entire set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty 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 hrs (M – F), the plugin developers will refund twice the amount of your purchasing price.
Plugin Pricing
- Single Site Licensing – Install the plugin on one of your own sites. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License Edition – Install the plugin on all of your own domains. Install the plugin on all client sites as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost of purchasing this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the product sells for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author 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 current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have 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 of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
The Bottom Line
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered sites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Note: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here. 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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