One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your internet presence needs to comply with a whole range of federal, state and even local laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering significant financial losses and 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 solution for WordPress users that can help make your site compliant in minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules constantly change, it’s important that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your online presence is an essential component of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social sites will suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed into a number of leading advertising and merchant networks.
Plus, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits or legal action.
At the very least, if your business online is not in compliance, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with compulsory federal, state or local laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- The importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or using in your website, and
- There are solutions that can help your business become more compliant, such as the solution that we review in this article.
If your web site is falling short in terms of compliance, there is a simple plugin for WordPress users you should know more about.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your website …
Learn more about this plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your site instantly compliant:
Installation Is Easy, Simple & Fast
Compliance Bar installs just like any plugin. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin to your Plugins folder via your administrator area and activate.
Easy To Edit Compliance Page Templates
You can easily make changes to the pre-built templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support Team
The plugin developers provide dedicated support to assist you with anything you need.
Some additional benefits of using the plugin include:
- Customized Compliance Templates: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a full library of training videos is provided if users need assistance.
- Use Anywhere In The World: 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 wherever your business is located.
- Can Be Used 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 leave out all other irrelevant pages.
Features
Compliance Bar offers many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Ready to start using in no time.
- Display Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Information – If your website publishes 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 website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based 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.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin records the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes to populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Using Compliance Bar
After installing and activating the plugin, you will get access to various settings pages.
Let’s briefly review these settings …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can input your business details into entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” “Company Phone Number,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to automatically insert the information you have entered into your User Profile in your page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of the templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of template pages made available by the plugin last time we checked the website:
- 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
Creating compliance pages for your blog or website is a simple process. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
Icons can be changed. You can purchase an additional set of icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can easily customize and delete your compliance page templates in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing 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
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting which pages to include an icon for 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create several Compliance Bars to display different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using a specific premium theme (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” WordPress 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 configured your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your legal through a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature your compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up 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 Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and capture 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 do business in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
The plugin lets you manage the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” screen …
(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” area, lists all of your compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
Testimonials
Below are a couple of the testimonials that plugin customers have written about Compliance Bar:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”I wanted to reach out & say Compliance Bar is a truly amazing product for keeping my online marketing efforts on the right side of the internet laws. Not only does it look fantastic on my sites, it is also intuitive and robustly powerful. It is packed full of features to allow me the flexibility to control exactly what my visitors need to see and know” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Useful Tips
Here are some additional ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If you include adult content on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated support to help users with anything they need. Users also have access to complete video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double your cost of purchasing.
Software Pricing
- Single License Edition – Can be installed on 1 domain that you own. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Install the plugin on twenty-five domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Install the plugin on multiple sites that you own. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Pricing for Compliance Bar can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing above was current when this review was published. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the software author when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing: Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Additional Info
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For a demo video showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Install The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites and blogs. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that 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 in your country or region.
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