One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your digital presence must comply with a wide range of federal, state and even local laws, some of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering serious financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and very inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your website legally compliant in minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s important to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your digital presence is a significant part of your overall business strategy.
If there are no 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, sites like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your web apps, and you won’t be allowed into various other advertising or merchant networks.
If your website is not in compliance, 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 website is not in compliance, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with mandatory federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business,
- The importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or endorsing on your website, and
- There are plugin-based solutions for WordPress users that can help your site become more compliant, such as the plugin that we review in this article.
If your website or blog lacks in terms of compliance, below we discuss a simple WordPress plugin you may be interested in using.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-install and simple-to-use plugin for WordPress-powered websites that includes over 20 customizable legal pages for your site …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Implement. Ready To Start Using In No Time.
Compliance Bar is very easy to install. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Templates
Easily modify the prebuilt compliance templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated plugin support team to assist users if they experience any difficulties.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Legal Pages: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and an entire library of training videos is provided.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the default templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used In All Niches: As long as your website is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the pages you want to include in your site and leave out unnecessary pages.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides a number of features to WP users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Compliance Bar displays links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Sensitive Content – If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies users and protects you from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin can record your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes that populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor mobile browsers.
Plugin Features – Details
Once the Compliance Bar plugin has been installed, the plugin’s “Settings” section gets added to your WP backend.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where your business details can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Business Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert and display the information into your page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been entered into the user profile fields, you can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen contains all of the compliance page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 20 legal templates available for complying with online business laws and regulations:
- 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
You can create compliance pages for your site quickly and easily simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” on the “Create Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
Icons are customizable. 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 Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can easily modify and delete your compliance disclaimers from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- 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. pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, selecting which pages to include an icon for in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your home page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create unlimited Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using a specific premium theme framework (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile device 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 displays links to your legal using a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance bar to show …
PopUps
If your website has content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that restricts access to users who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab 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 for different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your website …
You can also set a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing 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 your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements …
The Compliance Bar plugin 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 Screen: 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 compliance disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Users
Here are some of the testimonials and comments plugin users have published about Compliance Bar:
”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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”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
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Below are a few extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you include content for adult readers on your site, 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 plugin support team to help you. You also get access to an entire set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 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), the plugin developers will refund twice the amount of your purchase price.
Product Pricing
- Single – Can be installed on a single domain. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Can be installed on twenty-five sites that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Licensing – Can be installed on all as many of your own domains as you like. Can be installed on all client sites as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The cost of purchasing this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin is being retailed for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product author when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Additional Plugin Information
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin in action, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Install This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article. 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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