One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your digital presence needs to comply with a number of laws and regulations, many of which you may not be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring significant financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
As the cybersphere continues growing at breakneck speed and rules are constantly changing, it’s vital to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your web presence is an essential aspect of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you won’t be accepted into a number of other advertising and merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits or legal action.
At the very least, if your online business is not in compliance, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- The importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or using online, and
- There are cost-effective solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the solution that we review in this post.
In this article, you will learn about a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for a WordPress-based web presence.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Legal Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-install and simple-to-use WordPress plugin with over 20 customizable legal templates for your online business …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your site instantly legally compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Configure. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin is really easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your admin user section and activate.
Page Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
You can easily make changes to the default templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the visual editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated team to help you.
Additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a full library of training videos is available.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the default legal templates provided in Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use For All Website Purposes: As long as your website or blog is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore those that you don’t need.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many features to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – The plugin will display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Sensitive Information – If you plan to publish content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based 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 displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and protects your business from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records and stores the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the popups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the web browser being used.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features – Details
Once the plugin has been installed, users will get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s go through these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where you can input your information into input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Company Address,” “Location Details,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to populate the information you’ve inputted into your User Profile inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been input into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section contains all of the plugin’s compliance pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of templates made available by the plugin last time we checked their site:
- 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 website can be easily done. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – 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 attractive 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: Compliance Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can customize and delete your compliance page templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing 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, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon 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 Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using particular themes (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is 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 device screens, 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 using a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance icons to appear …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that restricts access to users who do not accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you complete control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover various uses in different areas of your site …
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 appearing again within a specific time period, and capture the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Section: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you customize the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” area …
(EU Cookies Screen: Manage Settings – Image 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 page templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Feedback
Below are a couple of the testimonials plugin customers have provided for Compliance Bar:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Below are a few useful ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you publish 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.
Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated plugin support to assist users if they experience any problems. Users also have access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 hours (Monday to Friday), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Plugin Price
- Single – Can be installed on a single domain. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License Edition – Can be installed on multiple domains that you own. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Pricing for the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the product is selling for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current price here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Additional Information
Templates Reviewed 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 advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For a demo video showing how the software works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Our Recommendation
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven sites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on this website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.
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