One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to break the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring financial loss, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your website legally compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the digital business realm continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules of the game are constantly changing, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your digital presence is a significant aspect of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and other social sites will suspend your web apps, and you will not be allowed into a number of leading advertising or merchant networks.
If your web presence is not compliant, you could also end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your business online is not compliant, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- The importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or endorsing online, and
- There are solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your website become more compliant, such as the solution that we review below.
In this article, you will learn about a total compliance & disclaimer plugin for your WordPress-based web presence.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar WordPress Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your web site legally compliant:
Easy To Install
Compliance Bar installs like every plugin. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Easy To Edit Templates
Easily edit the pre-built templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help users with anything they need.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a full library of training videos is available.
- Use In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the legal templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used In All Niches: If your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. 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 pages that you don’t need.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many great features to website owners. Here are just some of those:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icons – The plugin displays links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Content – If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies your visitors and covers your site from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – The plugin records and stores your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the mobile browser being used.
Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” screen gets added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your business details can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to dynamically populate the information into your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the user profile fields, you can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of the compliance pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 20 legal page templates available:
- 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
You can easily and quickly create compliance pages for your website or blog by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button in the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar 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: Legal Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can customize and delete your compliance page templates in the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing the compliance pages 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 many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to display 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 main 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 show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses in different areas of your website.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme framework (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically 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 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 displays links to your legal through a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to display your compliance icons …
PopUps
If your website contains content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen gives you complete control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in different areas of your website …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, 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 Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance laws …
The plugin lets you customize the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” screen …
(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” tab, lists all of your legal disclaimers and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, 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 comments that plugin 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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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Useful Tips
Below are some useful ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site contains content for adult viewers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist you with anything you need. Plugin users also have access to an entire library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty 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 (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double the cost of purchasing.
Product Cost
- Single License Edition – Can be installed on a single site. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on twenty-five of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License Edition – Can be installed on all of your own domains. Install the plugin on all client sites as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Price details for Compliance Bar Plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current pricing when this review was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current price: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar – Additional Info
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For demo videos showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Get The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and 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 Plugin – Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Note: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website. 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 wherever your business is based.
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