One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your internet presence needs to comply with a wide range of laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may probably not even 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 business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your website compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital realm continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules are constantly changing, it’s vitally important to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your online presence is a fundamental part of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed into various other advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
If your online business is not compliant, you could also face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your web properties comply with legal requirements and guidelines, 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 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 numerous legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to be compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or endorsing on your website, and
- There are plugins for WordPress users that can help your site become more compliant, such as the plugin that we review below.
If your web site is lacking in areas of compliance, here is a simple plugin for WordPress users that you may be very interested in using.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Legal Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital business …
Learn more about the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In No Time.
Compliance Bar installs just like any other plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin user account and activate.
Page Templates Are Easy To Edit
Easily make changes to the default templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist you.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Customized Compliance Pages: The Compliance Bar plugin will create 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 if you need assistance.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the default legal page templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Use For Any Website Purpose: As long as your website is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the legal pages you need to include in your site and leave out the irrelevant pages.
Features
Compliance Bar provides a number of features to WP users. Here are just some of those:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Ready to start using in no time.
- Show Attractive Icon Bar – The plugin will display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Restricted Content – If your site has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms and 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. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying your visitors and covering your website from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to automatically populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the pop-ups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the web browser being used.
Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured will be added to your WP admin area.
Let’s briefly review these areas …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where you can input your business information into input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Address,” “Location Details,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to automatically populate the information you’ve inputted into your User Profile fields in your page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been entered into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
When we last checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 20 compliance page templates available, addressing all areas of compliance:
- 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 site can be easily done. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons can be changed. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can edit and delete your legal pages from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing your compliance templates 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
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, specifying 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 offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create a number of Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using a specific 3rd-party theme (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), 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 through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance icons to show …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site …
You can also specify 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 period, 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 your business is based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
The 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” area …
(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” tab, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
Testimonials From Users
Below are a couple of the testimonials that users have written about Compliance Bar:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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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
Plugin Tips
Here are some additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your site.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site includes adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated support to help users if they experience any issues. Users also get access to full 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 hours (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund double the purchase price.
Software Price
- Single – Install the plugin on 1 site that you own. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five sites that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Install the plugin on multiple of your own sites. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The price of Compliance Bar Plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing above was current at the time this content was published. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the software seller when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Additional Information
Legal Pages Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert 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 to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how to” videos of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Get This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven sites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Note: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on this website. You must 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.
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