One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of having broken a law or regulation.
Your website has to comply with a wide range of federal, state and even local laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering financial loss, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and very inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your website fully compliant in minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules constantly change, it’s vital to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your web presence is an essential aspect of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, 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 may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social networks will suspend your apps, and you will not be allowed into many leading advertising and merchant networks.
If your digital presence is not compliant, you could end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your digital presence is not compliant, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to many 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 may be promoting or using online, and
- There are cost-effective solutions for WordPress users that can help your business become compliant, such as the solution that we discuss below.
If your web site is lacking in aspects of compliance, below we review a simple WordPress plugin that you will probably be interested in using.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple and easy-to-use plugin for WordPress-powered websites that contains over twenty customizable compliance disclaimers for your digital business …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website compliant:
Fast And Easy To Install And Use. Ready To Use In Very Little Time.
Compliance Bar Plugin is very easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Legal Page Templates Are Really Easy To Edit
You can easily edit the pre-built templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin develop provides a dedicated plugin support team to help you.
Additional benefits include:
- Customized Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a complete library of training videos is available.
- Use In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the default 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 For Every Website Purpose: As long as your website runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers that pertain to your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore those that you don’t need.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides a number of great features to web site owners. Below we have listed just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – Compliance Bar will display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Content – If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – 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. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies users and protects your website from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – The plugin records and stores the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes that populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the mobile browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
After installing and activating the plugin, users will have access to a number of settings.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your information can be input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” “Location Details,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate the information into your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area lists all of the legal templates …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of template pages made available by the Compliance Bar plugin last time we checked their 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 website can be easily done. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” in the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
Icons are customizable. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can easily modify and delete your compliance page templates in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing the 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 you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, specifying 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 offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover different uses in different areas of your site.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using a specific WordPress 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” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile screens, 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 displays links to your compliance pages through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance icons to appear …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
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 …
Compliance Bar 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” 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” section, lists all of your compliance disclaimers 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 receiving plugin update notifications …
User Testimonials
Below are a couple of the testimonials and feedback customers have submitted regarding the Compliance Bar plugin:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
***
”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Plugin Tips
Here are a few extra ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your website only.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you publish adult content on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help users if they 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 (Monday to Friday), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Product Cost
- Single – Install the plugin on 1 of your own sites. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Install the plugin on up to 25 domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Can be installed on all as many of your own sites as you want. Can be installed on all client sites as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Pricing details of the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software is being retailed for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the software author when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Legal Pages Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how to” videos 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-powered websites and blogs. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.
***