One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to break the law.
Your digital presence has to comply with a number of federal, state and even local laws and regulatory guidelines, many 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 easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and very inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your website compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital realm continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s important that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains legally compliant, 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 statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social networks could suspend your applications, and you won’t be accepted into many other advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being slapped with a lawsuit.
At the very least, if your digital presence is not in compliance, it may impact on your visitors trust and confidence about doing future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or endorsing online, and
- There are solutions that can help your business become more compliant, such as the solution that we review below.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress-powered websites that provides a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital business.
Presenting …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your website or blog instantly compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Set Up. Ready To Start Using In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin is quite easy to install. Simply upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WP administrator login and activate.
Templates Are Easy To Edit
You can easily edit the default compliance page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the visual content editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated team to assist users with anything they need.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Legal Pages: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - an entire library of training videos is available.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the built-in templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Use For Any Website Purpose: If your site is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any pages that you don’t need.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar provides many unique features to WordPress users. Here are just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in no time.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Information – If you plan to display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies your visitors and protects your site from non-compliance.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – The plugin records the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes that populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the popups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor mobile browsers.
Features – Details
After installing and activating the plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” area gets added to your WordPress backend.
Let’s briefly review these sections …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your business information can be input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Business Address,” “Location Details,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to populate the information entered into your User Profile fields into your page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of the legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
When we last checked the plugin website, there were over 20 compliance templates available for complying with online business laws and regulations:
- 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can easily create compliance pages for your website simply by selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button in the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar icons are customizable. 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 Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can edit and delete the compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing your compliance templates 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 various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, 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 main page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create several Compliance Bars to display different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in different areas of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile 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 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 show …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that blocks access to users who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your site …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and capture 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 your business is based in Europe 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 Compliance Bar plugin lets you edit 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” area, lists all of your compliance disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Feedback
Here are just some testimonials and comments that customers have written about Compliance Bar Plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Useful Tips
Here are some additional ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your website only.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If your website published adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated support to assist you with anything you need. Users also have access to a complete library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty 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 hrs (M – F), the plugin developers will refund twice the amount of your cost of purchase.
Product Licensing Price
- Single User License – Can be installed on one of your own sites. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Install the plugin on twenty-five of your own sites. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License – Install the plugin on multiple of your own domains. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: Current pricing for the Compliance Bar plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the product retails for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For demo videos showing how the software works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Our Recommendation
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites and blogs. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Important: Once again, 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 fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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