One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to break the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering significant financial costs, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your site fully compliant in minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules constantly change, it’s vitally important that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains legally compliant, especially if your online presence is an essential part 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 statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party 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 shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you will not be accepted into a range of other advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
If your web presence is not compliant, you could face 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, trust and confidence in your business could become an issue.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to remain compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or endorsing online, and
- There are solutions that can help your website become compliant, such as the solution that we discuss below.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress websites and blogs that provides a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your online business.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple and easy-to-install plugin for WordPress websites with over 20 customizable compliance templates for your web presence …
To learn more about the plugin go here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In No Time.
Compliance Bar is very easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WordPress admin user area and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Compliance Page Templates
Easily make changes to the built-in compliance templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress visual content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated plugin support to help you.
Additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and a complete library of training videos is provided.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the built-in legal page 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: If your website is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. 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 require.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many unique features to WP users. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Information – If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your site from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – The plugin records your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes that populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (even in the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the mobile browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
Once the Compliance Bar plugin is installed, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured will be added to your WordPress dashboard.
Let’s go through these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where you can enter your business details into input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” “Location Details,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to dynamically insert the information from your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been input into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area lists all of the legal template pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of templates made available by the Compliance Bar 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can easily and quickly create legal pages for your website or blog simply by selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” on the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily modify and delete your legal templates from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to display 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 main page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different icons on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using a specific theme framework (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme settings 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 displays links to your compliance pages through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to display your compliance bar …
PopUps
If your site contains content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that blocks access to users who do not accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create multiple Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your site …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations 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 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 Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” section …
(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 compliance disclaimers and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
User Feedback
Here are just a few of the testimonials plugin users have written about the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”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)
***
”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Below are some useful ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If your website published content for adults only, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated support to help you with anything you need. Users also get access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% refund guarantee. If your edition of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund twice the amount of your cost of purchasing.
Product Cost
- Single Site Licensing – Install the plugin on a single site that you own. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Can be installed on twenty-five domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Can be installed on multiple sites that you own. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: Current pricing for the Compliance Bar Plugin software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing shown above was correct at the time this content was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the product author when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. 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 how the software works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, 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 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 – Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.
***