One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring serious financial losses, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress users that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your web presence is a significant component of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social networks could suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed into various advertising and merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your site complies with all legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws that govern your business,
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or using online, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress users that can help your business become compliant, such as the solution that we discuss in this article.
If your web site is lacking in areas of compliance, there is a simple WordPress plugin that you may be very interested in using.
Presenting …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar WordPress Plugin is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
Learn more about this plugin here: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Set Up. Ready To Go To Work In Very Little Time.
Compliance Bar installs like every WordPress plugin. Simply upload a zip file that contains the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WP admin area and activate.
Easily Editable Page Templates
You can easily edit the prebuilt legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated plugin support to help you if you experience any problems.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Templates: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - 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 ascertain if the default legal page templates provided with 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: As long as your website or blog is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the compliance pages you want to include in your site and ignore the unnecessary pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many features to site owners. Here are just a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Information – If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, 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 be aware of EU Cookie law. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying your users and covering your business from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes that populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the pop-ups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Plugin Features – Details
After installing and activating the plugin, users have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your information can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” “Location Details,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information from your User Profile in your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen contains all of the plugin’s templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of legal templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last 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 legal pages for your site is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons can be changed. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your site’s design …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can easily customize and delete your compliance page templates from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – 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. compliance pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have 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 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, and more …
(Compliance Bar Screen: 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 a range of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific theme (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), 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 devices, you can only select up to a certain number of page icons to display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have specified your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your legal using a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance icons to display …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), you can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other sections of your website …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and 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 you do business 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 lets you manage the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” tab …
(EU Cookies Section: 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” screen, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Testimonials From Users
Here are some of the testimonials and feedback users have submitted regarding the Compliance Bar plugin:
“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)
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Below are a few useful ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If you have content that is deemed inappropriate for persons below a certain age on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated plugin support to assist you if you experience any problems. Plugin users also get access to an entire library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your edition of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund double the cost of purchase.
Software Cost
- Single Site Personal License – Can be installed on a single domain. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Install the plugin on twenty-five sites that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on all as many of your own sites as you like. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost of purchasing the Compliance Bar plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price shown above was correct at the time this content was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin author when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Additional Plugin Info
Legal Page 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 advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
In Conclusion
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven sites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here. 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 wherever your business is based.
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