One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of having broken a law or regulation.
Your internet presence needs to comply with numerous federal, state and even local laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering both financial losses and 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 inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your site compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vitally important that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your digital presence is an essential component of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you won’t be accepted into various leading advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
If you are not compliant, you could also end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your digital properties comply with all legal requirements and guidelines, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that 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 certain legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- How important it is to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or endorsing on your website, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your website become more compliant, such as the tool that we review in this post.
In this article, you will learn about a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital presence.
Presenting …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Legal Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your online presence …
Go here to learn more about the plugin: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few 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 very easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Page Templates Are Really Easy To Edit
Easily edit the pre-built legal templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the visual editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin develop provides a dedicated plugin support team to help you if you experience any difficulties.
Some additional benefits of this plugin include the following:
- Customized Compliance Pages: The Compliance Bar plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a complete library of training videos is available.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the legal page templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Can Be Used For All Website Purposes: If your website or blog is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers that suit your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out those that you don’t need.
Features
Compliance Bar offers many great features to website owners. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Compliance Bar displays links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Information – If your website has content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you are based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying visitors and covering you from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar can record and store your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – The plugin uses shortcodes that populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the mobile browser being used.
Features – Details
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured will be added to your WordPress admin area.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your business details can be entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Address,” “Location Details,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to automatically insert and display the information from your User Profile into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been input into the profile fields, you can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area lists all of your page templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
When we last checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 20 legal page templates available to WordPress 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
- XXX Disclosure
Creating compliance pages for your site is a simple process. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button on the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons are customizable. 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 Plugin: Compliance Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can edit and delete the legal disclaimer templates in the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing your legal pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before you installed 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, icon size, selecting 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, and more …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create multiple Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other areas of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using particular WordPress themes (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, 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 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 to display the compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create a number of customized Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and store the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
The 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 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” screen, lists all of your legal 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 receiving plugin updates …
User Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials and comments that plugin users have submitted regarding 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)
Plugin Tips
Here are a few extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If you have content that is inappropriate for minors on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated team to assist you. Users also get access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 (M – F), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Plugin Price
- Single Edition – Can be installed on one domain that you own. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Edition – Can be installed on all domains that you own. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The cost to purchase Compliance Bar Plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price above was correct when this article was published. This may not be the actual pricing set by the software author when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Additional Info
Legal Page Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For a demo video showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Get This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress sites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Note: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here. 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 wherever your business is based.
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