One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your website has to comply with a whole range of federal, state and even local laws, some of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring serious financial costs, but also the loss of 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 fully compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
As the digital realm continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains legally compliant, especially if your online presence is a significant component of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products for sale, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social networks could suspend your apps, and you will not be accepted into various leading advertising or merchant networks.
If your online business is not in compliance, you could end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your digital presence is not compliant, it could affect your visitors trust and confidence about doing any business with you in the future.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-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 numerous legal requirements in accordance with mandatory federal, state or local laws that govern your business,
- The importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or using in your website, and
- There are inexpensive solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the solution that we review in this article.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress websites that provides a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital business.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence …
Learn more about this plugin here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below are just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your web site legally compliant:
Easy Installation
Compliance Bar is quite easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your admin user account and activate.
Easy To Edit Legal Page Templates
You can easily edit the pre-built compliance page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress visual editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help you if you experience any issues.
Some additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Compliance Page Templates: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a complete library of training videos is provided.
- Use In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the built-in legal page templates provided in Compliance Bar 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 is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the pages you need to add to your site and leave out any irrelevant pages.
Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of features to website owners. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Information – If you plan to publish content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering you from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that automatically populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the pop-ups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the web browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
Once the Compliance Bar plugin is installed, the plugin’s “Settings” section gets added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s briefly review these pages …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can enter your information into entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Location Details,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information from your User Profile inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar 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, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of your templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
You can easily and quickly create compliance pages for your website simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” on the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Screenshot 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 is installed with a default set of attractive 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 theme …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can easily customize and delete your compliance disclaimers from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing the compliance pages 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 settings area provides many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting which pages should be included 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create multiple Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover a multitude 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 premium theme frameworks (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” WordPress 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 configured your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your legal through 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 your site contains content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create several 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 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 Section: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law …
The Compliance Bar plugin 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” tab …
(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 templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
User Feedback
Below are a few of the testimonials and feedback plugin customers have written about Compliance Bar:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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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)
Plugin Tips
Here are a few additional ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site published content for adults only, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help you. Users also have access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 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), the plugin developers will refund twice your cost of purchasing.
Product License Cost
- Single Site License – Can be installed on 1 of your own sites. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on 25 sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Licensing – Can be installed on all of your own domains. Can be installed on any client site as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: The price of the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin sells for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the product author when you visit the product 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 Bar – Additional Info
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For ”how to” videos showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support 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 installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article. You must 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 in your country or region.
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