One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
Your website must comply with numerous federal, state and even local laws, many of which you are probably not even aware of.
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 reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and very inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your website legally compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules are constantly changing, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your online presence is an essential component of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning 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 could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your web apps, and you will not be allowed into a number of advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
If your business online is not in compliance, you could also end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your website is not compliant, it could affect your visitors trust and confidence in doing any business with you in the future.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with compulsory federal, state or local laws and regulations 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 offering or endorsing in your website, and
- There are plugins for WordPress website owners that can help your site become more compliant, such as the solution that we review in this article.
In this article, we review a simple WordPress plugin that provides a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Legal Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use plugin for WordPress users that includes over 20 customizable compliance disclaimer templates for your digital presence …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your site legally compliant:
Ready To Use In Very Little Time
Compliance Bar Plugin is very easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your admin user login and activate.
Page Templates Are Easy To Edit
Easily edit the pre-built compliance page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated plugin support team to assist users with anything they need.
Some additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Legal Pages: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and an entire library of training videos is available.
- Use In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the built-in legal page templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used For All Website Purposes: If your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the pages you need to add to your site and ignore unnecessary pages.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers many great features to WP users. Below we have listed just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Ready to use in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Content – If your site has content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying visitors and covering your business from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – The plugin can record your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes to automatically populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Features – Details
After installing and activating the plugin, you get access to various settings pages.
Let’s briefly review these areas …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where your business information can be input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” “Contact Phone,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to populate and display the information into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been entered into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of the pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of templates made available by the plugin when we last checked the site:
- 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
Creating legal pages for your 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: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes 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: Compliance Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can easily customize and delete your compliance disclaimer templates from the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Templates – Image sourced from 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. legal pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, specifying which pages should be included 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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create an unlimited number of Compliance Bars to display different icons on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in different areas of your website.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using particular theme frameworks (e.g. 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” 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 specified your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your legal through dynamic 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 you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that blocks access to users who do not accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover a range of uses in different sections 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 appearing again within a specific time interval, and store the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
Compliance Bar lets you customize the settings for compliance with EU 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 compliance pages and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Feedback
Here are a few of the testimonials users have published about the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
***
”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 – Useful Tips
Here are some useful ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting 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 customers purchase.
- If you have content that is deemed inappropriate for minors on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist users. You also get access to video training.
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 hrs (M – F), the plugin developers will refund twice the amount of your cost of purchasing.
Software Cost
- Single User License – Can be installed on one of your own sites. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License – Install the plugin on multiple as many of your own domains as you want. Can be installed on all client sites as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost of purchasing the Compliance Bar plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the price when this review was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the software seller when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a 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 a demo video of the plugin in action, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Get This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Important: 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 of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
***