One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to break the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring both 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 inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your website legally compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules keep changing, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your online presence is an essential part of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your web apps, and you will not be allowed into many leading advertising or merchant networks.
If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could also face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you are not compliant, trust and confidence in your business may seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or endorsing on your website, and
- There are inexpensive solutions that can help your site 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 site.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a simple and easy-to-install WordPress plugin that contains over 20 customizable legal disclaimer templates for your web presence …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Below are just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website or blog legally compliant:
Be Up And Running In No Time
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like every plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your admin user login and activate.
Page Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
You can easily make changes to the default templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist users.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Customized Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a full library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the default templates provided in Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Can Be Used On All WordPress Sites: 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 which suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore those that are unnecessary.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of great features to site owners. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar will display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Information – If your website contains content that may 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 you are based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering you from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records and stores your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the popups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the mobile browser being used.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features – Details
After installing and activating the plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” area gets added to your WP backend.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can enter your information into entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Business Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to automatically insert the information you’ve inputted into your User Profile fields inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the profile fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of template pages made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last 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
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 ”Save” on the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can easily customize and delete the compliance templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing your legal pages is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image 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 Screen: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover different uses in other areas of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using particular WordPress themes (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” 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 configured your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your legal using a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance bar to appear …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover different uses in different sections of your website …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and capture the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Section: 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 need to be aware of EU compliance laws …
The plugin 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” area …
(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” screen, lists all of your compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Here are a couple of the testimonials that users have written about Compliance Bar Plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” 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
Plugin Tips
Here are a few additional ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your website only.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If you include adult content on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated support team to assist users. Plugin users also have access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 200% refund guarantee. If your edition of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 business hours (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of the cost of purchase.
Product Price
- Single – Install the plugin on a single domain. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on up to 25 domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Licensing – Can be installed on multiple of your own sites. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Current pricing for the Compliance Bar product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the price when this content was written. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin author when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal page templates have already 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 showing plugin usage, including installation instructions 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 sites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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