One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your website must comply with many federal, state and even local laws, some of which you may not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering significant financial losses and the cost to 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 easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your website legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
As the digital realm continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules are constantly changing, it’s important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your digital presence is an integral part of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you will not be accepted into a range of advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If your business online is not in compliance, you could end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your site complies with legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, trust and confidence in your business may become an issue.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws and regulations that govern your business,
- How important it is to remain compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using online, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress site owners that can help your business become compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
If your website is lacking in terms of compliance, here is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven sites that you will probably be very interested in using.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use WordPress plugin with over 20 customizable compliance templates for your site …
Learn more about this plugin here: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your web site compliant:
Installation Is Easy, Fast And Simple
Compliance Bar installs just like every other WP plugin. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your admin user account and activate.
Easily Editable Page Templates
You can easily edit the built-in legal templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help you with anything you need.
Additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Compliance Pages: The Compliance Bar plugin will create 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.
- 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 legal 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 Niches: If your site is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the templates you want to add to your site and leave out unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many features to site owners. Here are just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Content – If you plan to publish content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that force users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you are based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering you from non-compliance.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record and store the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case a user 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 site, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the browser being used.
Features – Details
Once the plugin is installed, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured will be added to your WP backend.
Let’s briefly review these areas …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where you can enter your information into input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” “Location Details,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information you have input into your User Profile inside your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been input 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 your templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
When we last checked the plugin website, there were over 20 compliance templates available to plugin users:
- 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
Creating legal pages for your website can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button on the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside 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 are customizable. 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: Compliance Page Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can modify and delete your legal pages from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing the legal pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you 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 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, and more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using a specific premium theme framework (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile screens, 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 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 display your compliance icons …
PopUps
If your site publishes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), you can display popups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create a number of customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in different areas of your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want the Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and even 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 visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws …
The 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” screen …
(EU Cookies Section: 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” screen, lists all of your legal 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 update notifications …
User Feedback
Here are just a few of the testimonials that customers have written about Compliance Bar:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Useful Tips
Here are some additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you have content that is inappropriate for persons below a certain age on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated team to assist users if they experience any issues. Plugin users also have access to an entire set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty 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 hours (M – F), your money will be refunded in double.
Product Cost
- Single License Edition – Can be installed on a single site. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License Edition – Can be installed on multiple of your own domains. Can be installed on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The cost of purchasing Compliance Bar depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software sells for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual price set by the software seller when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For ”how-to” videos of the plugin, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
The Bottom Line
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here. You must 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.
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