One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your website or blog has to comply with numerous federal, state and even local laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring 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 look at a simple and very inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your website legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s important to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your web presence is a significant aspect of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed into a range of leading advertising and merchant networks.
If your business online is not compliant, you could end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, without making it very clear to your visitors that your website complies with all legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or endorsing online, and
- There are easy-to-use solutions that can help your website become compliant, such as the tool that we discuss below.
If you suspect that your website or blog falls short in terms of compliance, here is a simple plugin for WordPress users you will probably be interested in using.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your online presence …
For more details go here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website legally compliant:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like any regular plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your admin user area and activate.
Editable Page Templates
You can easily edit the default legal page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated support to assist you with anything you need.
Additional benefits of the plugin include the following:
- Customized Compliance Pages: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a full library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the legal templates provided with 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 In All Niches: As long as your website or blog runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers that pertain to your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any templates that you don’t need.
Features
Compliance Bar provides a number of features to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- 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, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you are based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies users and covers your website from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the web browser being used.
Using The Plugin
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured will be added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where you can input your information into entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Address,” “Location Details,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to populate the information from your User Profile fields into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of the plugin’s compliance templates …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of legal templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin last time we checked the 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 create compliance pages for your site by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button in the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
Icons are customizable. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can easily customize and delete the legal pages in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying 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 front page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create multiple Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover different uses in other sections of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, even if you are using particular themes (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” 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 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 bar to appear …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that blocks access to users who do not accept your site’s 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 displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other areas of your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display immediately, set a cookie duration 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 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 …
Compliance Bar lets you manage the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” screen …
(EU Cookies Screen: 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 disclaimers and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
User Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials and feedback plugin users have published about the Compliance Bar plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Useful Tips
Below are some useful ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you publish content for adult viewers on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated plugin support team to help you. Plugin users also have access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 business hours (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of the cost of purchase.
Plugin Price
- Single License Edition – Install the plugin on 1 of your own sites. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on up to twenty-five of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Install the plugin on multiple as many of your own sites as you need. Can be installed on all client sites as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Pricing for the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the plugin is being retailed for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin author when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing information here: Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Page Templates 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 legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For a demo video of the plugin in action, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Our Recommendation
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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