One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring serious financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and easy-to-install solution for WordPress users that can help make your site fully compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
As the digital business realm continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules constantly change, it’s vital to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is an integral part of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social sites will suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed into most other advertising and merchant networks.
Plus, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being exploited by opportunistic people or organizations.
At the very least, if your business online is not in compliance, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to be compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using on your website, and
- There are easy solutions that can help your business become more compliant, such as the plugin that we review in this article.
If you suspect that your website falls short in terms of compliance, below we review a simple WordPress plugin that you may be interested in using.
Presenting …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple plugin for WordPress users containing over twenty customizable legal templates for your website …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website compliant:
Quick And Simple To Install And Set Up. Ready To Go To Work In Minutes.
Compliance Bar is quite easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your administrator area and activate.
Editable Templates
Easily make changes to the built-in compliance page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist you if you experience any difficulties.
Some additional benefits of using this plugin include:
- Customized Compliance Pages: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and a full library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the default legal page 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 Every Website Purpose: If your website is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the compliance pages you need to include in your site and ignore irrelevant pages.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar provides many unique features to WP users. Here are just some of those features:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar will display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be placed anywhere in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Content – If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and covers your site from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records and stores your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes to automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (even in the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the web browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
Once the plugin is installed, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured is added to your WP backend.
Let’s go through these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where you can input your business information into entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Business Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to insert and display the information you have entered into your User Profile in your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been entered into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area lists all of the plugin’s compliance page templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 compliance templates made available:
- 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 create compliance pages for your site quite easily simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” on the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can modify and delete the compliance disclaimer templates in the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Pages – Image sourced from 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. pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to show links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, specifying 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 several Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific WordPress theme framework (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 normal “static” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile device 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 using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to display the compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen gives you complete control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want the Pop Ups to display immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and store the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: 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 Compliance Bar plugin lets you edit the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” section …
(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” tab, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Users
Below are a few of the testimonials and feedback that customers have published about the Compliance Bar Plugin 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)
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Below are some extra ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site includes content for adults only, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated 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, thirty 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 business hours (M – F), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Plugin Cost
- Single – Install the plugin on 1 domain that you own. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on twenty-five sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Can be installed on multiple of your own sites. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: The price of the Compliance Bar plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the pricing at the time this article was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller 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 the latest price here: Compliance Bar
Additional Information
Legal 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 highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For ”how to” videos showing how the software works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer 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 websites. 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 – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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