Compliance Bar – Legal Web Compliance Plugin For WordPress

One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.

If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.

Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering serious financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?

In this article, we review a simple and easy-to-use 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 website or blog remains legally compliant, especially if your online presence is a significant part of your overall business strategy.

If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social networks will suspend your web apps, and you will not be accepted into various other advertising or affiliate marketing networks.

If your digital presence is not compliant, you could face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

At the very least, without making it clear to your visitors that your site complies with legal requirements and guidelines, it may affect your visitors trust and confidence about doing any business with you in the future.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article.

The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:

1. Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern your business,
2. How important it is to be compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using online, and
3. There are cost-effective plugins for WordPress users that can help your business become compliant, such as the tool that we discuss below.

In this article, we review a simple WordPress plugin that provides a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your web presence.

Introducing …

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin

Plugin Description

Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple and easy-to-install plugin for WordPress users containing over 20 customizable compliance templates for your online business …

More info: Compliance Bar Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits

Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your web site instantly legally compliant:

Fast And Easy To Install And Implement. Ready To Go To Work In No Time.

Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like any regular plugin. Simply upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.

Easily Editable Compliance Page Templates

You can easily edit the prebuilt compliance page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG content editor.

Dedicated Support

The plugin developers provide a dedicated support team to help users with anything they need.

Some additional benefits include the following:

• Customized Compliance Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
• Complete Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - an entire library of training videos is provided.
• Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the legal page templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
• Use On All WordPress Sites: As long as your site runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any that you don’t need.

Compliance Bar Plugin Features

Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of great features to WordPress users. Here are just some of those:

• Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to start using in very little time.
• Show Attractive Icon Bar – Compliance Bar will display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
• Display Restricted Information – If you plan to publish content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
• EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe 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. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies your users and covers you from non-compliance.
• Record And Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
• Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes to automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the pop-ups).
• Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor web browsers.

Using Compliance Bar Plugin

After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured gets added to your WordPress backend.

Let’s review these settings briefly …

User Profile

There are a number of default fields in this area where your business details can be input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)

(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)

The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile fields inside your legal templates …

(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)

Once the minimum required information has been entered into the profile fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.

Compliance Pages

The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of the plugin’s templates …

(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)

When we last checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 compliance page templates available to plugin users:

• 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

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 ”Save” at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” section …

(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)

Your legal pages will then be created and added to your “Pages” section.

Compliance Bar Icons

The plugin is installed with a built-in 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 Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)

Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates

You can modify and delete your compliance page templates in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any typical WordPress page …

(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)

Notes

• Editing your compliance templates is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
• The plugin will notify you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before you installed the plugin).

Compliance Bar

The plugin settings area provides many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, specifying which pages to include an icon for 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 Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot 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 in different areas of your website.
• The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, even if you are using particular 3rd-party theme frameworks (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 “regular” page.
• Due to the smaller size of mobile 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 will display links to your legal through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …

You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance icons to display …

PopUps

If your site includes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that require users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.

The “Create Pop Up” page lets you fully customize your pop ups …

(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)

You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses in other areas of your site …

You can also specify a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and store the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …

(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)

EU Cookies

If you are based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …

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” area …

(EU Cookies Section: 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” section, lists all of your compliance disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …

General Settings

The “General Settings” screen, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …

User Testimonials

Here are just some testimonials and feedback users have provided for the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:

”When I got my hands on Compliance Bar, I knew I needed help to be compliant, but I had no idea how much danger I was in, nor did I know all of the different things I needed to be compliant. Once I installed Compliance Bar, I was able to very quickly add all the items I needed to ensure I didn’t end up getting fined by various agencies, or have my site pulled from Google. The best part is that getting it all set up took only minutes, and I know that I am far safer than I was. Compliance Bar is one of the best plugins I have used in a long time.” 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

Compliance Bar Plugin Tips

Below are some additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:

• Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
• Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
• Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
• If your site includes content for adult viewers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.

Compliance Bar Product Support

Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated support team to help users. You also get access to an entire library of training videos.

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 (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of the cost of purchase.

Plugin Pricing

• Single User Licensing – Install the plugin on 1 site that you own. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
• Business Edition – Install the plugin on 25 sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
• Professional Edition – Install the plugin on multiple as many of your own sites as you like. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.

Note: Pricing details of this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the software is being retailed for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the product developer when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.

Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar

Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info

Legal Pages Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.

For a demo video of the plugin, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.

Download The Plugin

Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.

For full details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.

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