One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of having broken the law.
Your digital presence needs to comply with many laws and regulations, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering 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 article, we look at a simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress users that can help make your website legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
As the internet continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s vitally important to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your online presence is an integral component of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social sites will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be accepted into most other advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
At the very least, if your business online is not compliant, it could affect your visitors trust and confidence in doing future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- The importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or using online, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress users that can help your business become more compliant, such as the plugin that we review in this article.
In this article, we review a complete compliance & disclaimer plugin for your WordPress-based online business.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence …
For more details go here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your web site legally compliant:
Fast And Easy Installation
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like every WordPress plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Legal Page Templates
Easily edit the prebuilt legal page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the visual content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated support team to assist users if they experience any issues.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Legal 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 full library of training videos is provided.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the built-in legal 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: As long as your site is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the compliance pages you need to add to your site and leave out unnecessary pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides a number of great features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just some:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icon Bar – The plugin displays links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed on different locations in your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Content – If you plan to display content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you are based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your business from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records your visitors’ IP address for future 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 legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor browsers.
Using Compliance Bar
Once you have installed the plugin, you will then have access to various settings pages.
Let’s go through these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your business information can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Business Address,” “Location Details,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to dynamically populate and display the information entered into your User Profile into your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been input into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section contains all of your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 20 legal templates available, covering all aspects of compliance:
- 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 compliance pages for your blog or website can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” on the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
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: Compliance Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can customize and delete the legal disclaimer templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing your compliance pages 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, 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 more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses in other sections of your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using particular premium theme frameworks (e.g. 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” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile device screens, 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 legal through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance bar to display …
PopUps
If your site contains content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page 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 several customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in different sections of your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and even record 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 need to be aware of EU compliance requirements …
The Compliance Bar plugin 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” tab …
(EU Cookies Section: Manage Settings – Screenshot 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” area, lists all of your compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Feedback
Below are a few of the testimonials that plugin users have provided for the Compliance Bar plugin:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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”If you are like me, you maybe have quite a few WordPress sites, all needing attention and most importantly, all needing to be on the right side of the law! I’ve tried several legal pages plugins and in pretty much every case, they let me down. They simply cause more work than they solve.To me, the answer should be simple. It should work and it should let me get on with building my site. After all, I know I NEED to do this stuff, but hey, I don’t really WANT to! So, for me, I don’t want those plugins that cause more work than they solve. Simple eh? Well now it is because Anton & John have just created this baby that is the answer to my needs. The Compliance Bar Plugin does what I need it to do then lets me get on with my empire building…Perfect!” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Below are a few additional ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages of your website only.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you have content for adult viewers 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 help users if they experience any difficulties. You also get access to an entire set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (M – F), your money will be refunded in double.
Plugin Price
- Single User Personal License – Can be installed on 1 of your own domains. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Install the plugin on twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on multiple domains that you own. Can be installed on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost of purchasing Compliance Bar depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the plugin sells for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price set by the plugin author when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing details here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Additional Plugin Info
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer 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 websites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our 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 wherever your business is based.
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