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 digital presence must comply with a wide range of federal, state and even local laws, some of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering both financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good 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 fully compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
As the internet continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your online presence is a fundamental component of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social sites will suspend your web apps, and you will not be accepted into a number of other advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
If your web presence is not compliant, you could also end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your site complies with all legal requirements and regulations, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to be seriously affected.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with compulsory federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business,
- How important it is to be compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or endorsing in your website, and
- There are easy solutions that can help your business become more compliant, such as the solution that we discuss below.
If your website falls short in areas of compliance, we review below a simple WordPress plugin you should know more about.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a simple WordPress plugin that contains over twenty customizable compliance templates for your online business …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your web site compliant:
Easy Installation
Compliance Bar is really easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Editable Templates
Easily make changes to the pre-built templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the visual editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated support to assist users.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Legal Templates: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - an entire library of training videos is provided if users need help.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the default legal page templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use On All WordPress Sites: As long as your website is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the templates you want to add to your site and leave out the irrelevant pages.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar provides a number of great features to web site owners. Below we have listed just some of these features:
- Fast and simple to install and use. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Display Attractive Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Information – If your site publishes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business 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 displays an attractive bar that notifies users and covers you from non-compliance.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – The plugin can record the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to automatically populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (even in the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the browser being used.
Features – Details
Once you have installed the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured will be added to your WP dashboard.
Let’s briefly review these areas …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can enter your business details into input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information you have entered into your User Profile fields in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been input into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of the plugin’s compliance template pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of legal templates made available by the plugin last time we checked their 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
- XXX Disclosure
Creating legal pages for your site 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: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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: Legal Page Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can modify and delete the legal pages in the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting which pages to include an icon for 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create a number of Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in different sections of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using particular premium themes (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 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 compliance pages through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to display the compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that force users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you full 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 for different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your site …
You can also set 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 Section: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
The Compliance Bar 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 templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
User Testimonials
Below are a couple of the testimonials and feedback that plugin customers have provided for the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”One of the most annoying parts about building out a site is to make sure it complies with the law. I always leave this part to the end because its painfully dry and boring and frankly I always just wished their was an easier way. Then I came across Compliance Bar and its literally the most versitile and brilliant plugin I have ever used. All my pages meet FTC requirements now and all I had to do was press a button! Anton and Jon..you guys friggen rock — 1000% highly recommend this!!” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
***
”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Plugin Tips
Below are a few useful ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site contains adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated support to help users with anything they need. Users also get access to an entire library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% refund guarantee. If your version of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund twice the amount of the purchase price.
Product Pricing
- Single – Can be installed on a single domain. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on up to twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Edition – Install the plugin on all domains that you own. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Pricing for the Compliance Bar Plugin software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing shown above was current when this review was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product developer when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Additional Plugin Info
Legal Pages Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For ”how to” videos showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Install This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress sites. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
***