One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break 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 suffering serious financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your website compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the digital business realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules are constantly changing, it’s important to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your web presence is a fundamental aspect 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 like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you will not be accepted into many advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your website complies with all legal requirements and regulations, it could impact on your visitors trust and confidence in doing any business with you in the future.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with 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 are promoting or using online, and
- There are inexpensive plugins for WordPress users that can help your website become compliant, such as the plugin that we review below.
If your website lacks in aspects of compliance, there is a simple plugin for WordPress users that you will probably be interested in using.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your website instantly legally compliant:
Fast And Easy To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar installs just like every other WordPress plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress administrator login and activate.
Templates Are Really Easy To Edit
You can easily edit the prebuilt legal templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the visual content editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated support to assist users if they experience any problems.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Templates: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a full library of training videos is available if users need help.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the legal templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use For All Website Purposes: As long as your website is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the pages you want to add to your site and leave out any unnecessary pages.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many features to website owners. Here are just some:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Ready to start using in very little time.
- Display Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar will display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Information – If your site includes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you are 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. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies your visitors and protects your site from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin can record your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the web browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
After installing and activating the plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” section is added to your WordPress backend.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where your business information can be entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Business Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to insert and display the information from your User Profile fields in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the user profile fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of your pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 compliance pages available to plugin users:
- 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 create compliance pages for your site simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” on the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in 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: Compliance Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily customize and delete the legal templates from the “Compliance Pages” section, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing the legal pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin will notify 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 where to position the bar, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, specifying 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 Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different icons on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, even if you are using a specific premium theme framework (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, 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 will display links to your legal using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance bar to display …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that restricts access to users who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and capture 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 Europe 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 …
Compliance Bar 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 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” section, lists all of your compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials that plugin customers have provided for the Compliance Bar plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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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)
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Below are some additional ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages of your site.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If you publish content for adults only on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated plugin support team to help you if you experience any problems. Users also have access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 day, 200% refund guarantee. If your version of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (M – F), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Plugin Pricing
- Single – Install the plugin on 1 of your own sites. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on up to twenty-five of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – 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.
Note: Price details for Compliance Bar depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current pricing when this article was written. This may not be the actual price set by the product author when you visit the plugin website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim 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 of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, 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-powered sites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, 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 to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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