One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering both financial losses and the cost to 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-use WordPress solution that can help make your website fully compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules constantly change, it’s important to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your web presence is a significant part of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social sites could suspend your web apps, and you won’t be accepted into many other advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your website complies with legal requirements and guidelines, it could affect your visitors trust and confidence about doing any business with you in the future.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws that govern your business,
- The importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or endorsing in your website, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress site owners that can help your website become more compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss below.
If you suspect that your website or blog lacks in terms of compliance, below we review a simple WordPress plugin that you should know more about.
Presenting …
Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your website …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to make your website instantly compliant:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
Compliance Bar installs just like every plugin. Simply upload a zip file containing the plugin to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Legal Page Templates Are Easy To Edit
Easily make changes to the prebuilt templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated plugin support team to help users if they experience any difficulties.
Additional benefits of the plugin include the following:
- Customized Compliance Pages: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and a full library of training videos is provided.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the legal templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use On All WordPress Sites: If your website is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any that are irrelevant.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of great features to site owners. Here are just some:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Content – If you plan to display content that may 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 website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you are 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. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your website from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin records and stores your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes to populate the 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 and tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor web browsers.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” area gets added to your WordPress dashboard.
Let’s briefly review these pages …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your business information can be input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to populate and display the information into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section contains all of the plugin’s templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of legal templates made available by the plugin last time we checked the website:
- 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
Creating compliance pages for your site is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: 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 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 Plugin: Compliance Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can customize and delete the compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin will notify you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to show 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 front page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create unlimited Compliance Bars to display different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme framework (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” 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 a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to display the compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), you can display pop-ups that blocks access to users who do not accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot 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 if you don’t want a Pop Up to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and even record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Section: IP Log Details – Image 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 customize 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 – 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” area, lists all of your legal disclaimers 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 getting plugin updates …
Testimonials
Below are a few of the testimonials that customers have provided for the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”One of the most annoying parts about building out a site is to make sure it complies with the law. I always leave this part to the end because its painfully dry and boring and frankly I always just wished their was an easier way. Then I came across Compliance Bar and its literally the most versitile and brilliant plugin I have ever used. All my pages meet FTC requirements now and all I had to do was press a button! Anton and Jon..you guys friggen rock — 1000% highly recommend this!!” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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”If you are like me, you maybe have quite a few WordPress sites, all needing attention and most importantly, all needing to be on the right side of the law! I’ve tried several legal pages plugins and in pretty much every case, they let me down. They simply cause more work than they solve.To me, the answer should be simple. It should work and it should let me get on with building my site. After all, I know I NEED to do this stuff, but hey, I don’t really WANT to! So, for me, I don’t want those plugins that cause more work than they solve. Simple eh? Well now it is because Anton & John have just created this baby that is the answer to my needs. The Compliance Bar Plugin does what I need it to do then lets me get on with my empire building…Perfect!” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Useful Tips
Here are a few additional ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages of your site.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If you have content for adult viewers on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated plugin support team to assist users with anything they need. 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 version of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund twice the cost of purchase.
Plugin Cost
- Single – Can be installed on a single site that you own. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Can be installed on up to twenty-five of your own sites. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Can be installed on multiple of your own sites. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The price of the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the product is selling for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price set by the plugin author when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Legal Page Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for peace of mind.
For demo videos of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, 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-powered websites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this 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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