One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your digital presence needs to comply with numerous laws and regulations, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering serious financial loss, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and very inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your site fully compliant in minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital business realm continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules of the game are constantly changing, it’s important that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your online presence is an essential part of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning 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 could suspend your apps, and you won’t be accepted into various advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
Plus, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being exploited by opportunistic online users.
At the very least, if your online business is not in compliance, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws that govern your business,
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or using in your website, and
- There are solutions for WordPress users that can help your business become compliant, such as the tool that we discuss below.
If you suspect that your website or blog lacks in aspects of compliance, below we review a simple plugin for WordPress websites and blogs you may be very interested in using.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
To learn more about the plugin go here: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your site compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Configure. Ready To Start Using In Very Little Time.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like any other plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP admin account and activate.
Editable Templates
Easily make changes to the built-in templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated plugin support team to help you.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Compliance Pages: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a full library of training videos is provided if you need help.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the default legal templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use For Every Website Purpose: As long as your website is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the pages you want to include in your site and leave out irrelevant pages.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of great features to site owners. Here are just some of those features:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to use in very little time.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Content – If you plan to display content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying your visitors and covering your business from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record and store your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes that populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the web browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Once you have installed the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured will be added to your WP admin area.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where your business details can be entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen contains all of the plugin’s compliance pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of legal templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last checked the site:
- About Us
- AdSense Disclaimer
- Affiliate Agreements
- Affiliate Disclosure Statement
- 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 blog or website is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button in the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar 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: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can easily edit and delete your compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, 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 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 more than one Compliance Bar to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in other areas of your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using a specific theme (like 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 devices, there is a limit to the number of page icons you can display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have configured your Compliance Bar settings, it displays 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 be featured …
PopUps
If your website includes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: 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 site …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and capture 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 EU visitors, you need to 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 Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” section …
(EU Cookies Screen: 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 templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
User Testimonials
Below are a couple of the testimonials plugin customers have published about Compliance Bar:
”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 Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Plugin Tips
Here are some extra ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your site.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your website contains adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated plugin support team to assist you if you experience any issues. Plugin users also get access to an entire library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your version of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of the purchasing price.
Software Price
- Single License Edition – Install the plugin on a single domain. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on twenty-five of your own sites. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License Edition – Can be installed on multiple as many of your own sites as you like. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The cost of purchasing Compliance Bar Plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the price when this content was written. This may or may not be the actual price set by the plugin seller when you visit the website 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 Plugin
Additional Info
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For demo videos showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, 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 sites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, visit the plugin website 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. 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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