One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring significant financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your website compliant in minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital realm continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules of the game are constantly changing, it’s vital to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is an integral component of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and many other social sites will suspend your web applications, and you will not be accepted into many leading advertising or merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your web properties comply with legal requirements and regulations, trust and confidence in your business may be damaged.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to remain compliant 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 for WordPress website owners that can help your site become more compliant, such as the tool that we discuss in this article.
If you suspect that your website falls short in terms of compliance, there is a simple WordPress plugin you will probably be interested in knowing more about.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your website …
To learn more about the plugin go here: Compliance Bar
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website or blog compliant:
Ready To Start Using In No Time
Compliance Bar installs like any other plugin. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WP admin user account and activate.
Easy To Edit Templates
You can easily make changes to the pre-built legal templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress visual content editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated plugin support to help you if you experience any problems.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Customized Compliance Page Templates: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - an entire library of training videos is provided.
- Use In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the built-in templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used On All WordPress Sites: If your site runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the legal pages you need to add to your site and ignore unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of great features to website owners. Here are just some:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – Compliance Bar displays links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Information – If your site has content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you are based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and protects your business from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – The plugin records the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the popups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor browsers.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Once you have installed the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured gets added to your WP admin area.
Let’s go through these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your business information can be entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Business Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses shortcodes to insert and display the information from your User Profile fields into your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: 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 areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of your pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin last time we checked the 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
- XXX Disclosure
Creating legal pages for your website or blog can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons can be changed. 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 Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can edit and delete your compliance page templates from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, 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 home 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 a multitude of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using a specific premium theme (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 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 will display links to your legal using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to display your compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), you can display popups that require 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 Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create several Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in different sections of your site …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and store the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU compliance laws …
The plugin lets you customize 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 sourced from 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 compliance disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
Testimonials
Here are just some testimonials and feedback plugin customers have published about the Compliance Bar plugin:
”I got a chance to review the Compliance Bar plugin…WOW!! I have to say that its definitely one of the most NECESSARY, yet easiest to use plugin’s to hit the scene in a while. Very Solid Product. Great job Anton & team!” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”You wouldn’t drive a car around without insurance…so don’t RISK your online business by neglecting a simple, but important detail: website compliance. Grab your copy of Compliance Bar & protect yourself today!” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Compliance Bar – Useful Tips
Here are some useful ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If you have content that is inappropriate for minors on your site, 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. You also have access to video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% refund guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (M – F), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Plugin Pricing
- Single – Install the plugin on a single domain. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on twenty-five sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License – Install the plugin on all as many of your own domains as you like. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Price details for the Compliance Bar plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the product is selling for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the software developer when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar – Additional Info
Legal Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For a demo video showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer 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 installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here. 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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