One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of having broken the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring significant financial loss, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and very inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your website legally compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules are constantly changing, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains legally compliant, especially if your online presence is a fundamental aspect of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social networks will suspend your web apps, and you will not be allowed into a number of other advertising or merchant networks.
Plus, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
At the very least, if your website is not in compliance, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws 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 online, and
- There are plugins for WordPress website owners that can help your website become more compliant, such as the plugin that we review below.
If your website or blog lacks in aspects of compliance, below we review a simple plugin for WordPress users that you should know more about.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-powered websites containing over twenty customizable compliance disclaimers for your online business …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your web site compliant:
Very Easy To Install
Compliance Bar is really easy to install. Simply upload a zip file that contains the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Page Templates Are Really Easy To Edit
Easily edit the built-in compliance templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress visual content editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help you with anything you need.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Legal Templates: The plugin 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 - an entire 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 make sure that the default 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: As long as your site is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Just select the templates you need to include in your site and ignore the irrelevant pages.
Features
Compliance Bar provides many great features to web site owners. Here are just some:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – Compliance Bar will display links to your legal 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 Restricted Content – If your site contains content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you are based in Europe 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 your users and protects your website from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records and stores your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’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, (even in the pop-ups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor web browsers.
Plugin Features – Details
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, users have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where your business details can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Contact Phone,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Registered Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to automatically insert the information you have entered into your User Profile fields inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been input into the user profile fields, you can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area contains all of the plugin’s legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of legal templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin last time we checked their website:
- 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 simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to 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 can be changed. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily customize and delete the compliance disclaimer templates in the “Compliance Pages” screen, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing your 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
The plugin offers 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 home 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 more than one Compliance Bar to display different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your site, even if you are using a specific WordPress theme (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile device 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 complete control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance icons to be featured …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your website …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying 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 Section: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws …
The Compliance Bar 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 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” area, lists all of your compliance disclaimer templates 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
Here are a couple of the testimonials that users have published about the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Here are some extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you publish content that is deemed inappropriate for underaged viewers on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated plugin support to assist users. Plugin users also get access to video training.
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), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Software Cost
- Single User Personal License – Can be installed on 1 site that you own. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Can be installed on 25 of your own sites. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Install the plugin on all as many of your own domains as you like. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Current pricing for the Compliance Bar product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the product retails for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin in action, including installation instructions 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 websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users 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 Plugin For Website Compliance
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on this 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 in your country or region.
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