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 breaking the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring significant financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and very inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your site fully compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
As the cybersphere continues growing at breakneck speed and rules constantly change, it’s important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your digital presence is an integral aspect of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend your web apps, and you will not be accepted into many other advertising or merchant networks.
If you are not in compliance, you could also face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, without making it very clear to your visitors that your site complies with all legal requirements and guidelines, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- The importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or using online, and
- There are plugins for WordPress website owners that can help your site become more compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss in this article.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress sites that provides a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital presence.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Legal Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-install and simple-to-use plugin for WordPress websites with over twenty customizable legal templates for your online presence …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar
Here are just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your site instantly legally compliant:
Quick Installation
Compliance Bar is really easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin user section and activate.
Easy To Edit Page Templates
You can easily edit the pre-built legal page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated team to help you if you experience any issues.
Some additional benefits of using the plugin include:
- Customized Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - an entire library of training videos is available.
- Use In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice 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 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 any website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any that you don’t need.
Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of great features to site owners. Below we have listed just some:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – The plugin will display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Content – If you plan to display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and covers your business from non-compliance issues.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records and stores the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – The plugin uses shortcodes to populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (even in the popups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the browser being used.
Plugin Features – Details
Once the Compliance Bar plugin has been installed, the plugin’s “Settings” section will be added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where you can input your information into entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Business Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile inside your page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of your pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 20 legal page templates available, addressing all areas 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
You can easily and quickly create legal pages for your website by simply selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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 Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can easily edit and delete your legal pages in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, selecting which pages to include an icon for in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your home 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 various uses in other sections of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, even if you are using a specific premium theme (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is 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 specified your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your compliance pages using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance icons to be featured …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require 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 Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your site …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, 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 your business is based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
The 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” section …
(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 disclaimers and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
Testimonials
Here are just a few of the testimonials and feedback that plugin users have provided for Compliance Bar Plugin:
”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
Below are some extra ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you include content for adults only on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist you. Users also get access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% refund 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 cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Software Cost
- Single Site Personal License – Can be installed on a single site. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Install the plugin on up to 25 domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License – Install the plugin on all as many of your own sites as you want. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost of purchasing Compliance Bar can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the product sells for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged 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
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
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 Plugin website.
Get The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer 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 fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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