One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Your website or blog must comply with a whole set of laws, some of which you may not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering serious 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 post, we look at a simple and inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your site legally compliant in minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm 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 website or blog remains legal, especially if your online presence is a significant component of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you will not be accepted into many advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
Plus, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your website complies with all legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, trust and confidence in your business could be irrepairably.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with mandatory federal, state or local laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- The importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using online, and
- There are solutions for WordPress users that can help your website become compliant, such as the solution that we discuss below.
If your website is falling short in terms of compliance, here is a simple plugin for WordPress websites you may be interested in using.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your website …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your site instantly compliant:
Easy Installation
Compliance Bar installs like any regular WP plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Compliance Page Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
Easily edit the default templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the visual editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated support to assist you.
Additional benefits of this plugin include:
- Customized 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 difficult to use - an entire library of training videos is available.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the built-in legal 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 For All Niches: As long as your site is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the templates you need to add to your site and ignore the irrelevant pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers many great features to WP users. Below we have listed just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Attractive Icon Bar – Compliance Bar will display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Restricted Content – If you plan to display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based 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 that notifies users and covers your website from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records and stores the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the pop-ups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the web browser being used.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features – Details
After installing and activating the plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured will be added to your WordPress dashboard.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your business details can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Company Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to automatically insert and display the information from your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been entered into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen contains all of the legal templates …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of legal templates made available by the 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
You can create compliance pages for your site quickly and easily simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” in the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
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 Plugin: Legal Page Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can customize and delete the compliance disclaimer templates in the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Tips
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. legal pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides various 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 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 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 in other areas of your site.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using particular premium theme frameworks (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile device screens, you can only select up to a certain number of page icons to display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have configured your Compliance Bar settings, it will display 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 bar …
PopUps
If your website has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that restricts access to users who do not accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab 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 displaying on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and even record 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 your business is 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 …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you edit 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 compliance disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Users
Below are a few of the testimonials and comments that plugin customers have provided for Compliance Bar:
”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)
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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)
Plugin Tips
Here are some useful ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If you publish adult content on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated support to assist users if they experience any difficulties. 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 business hours (M – F), your money will be refunded in double.
Software Price
- Single – Install the plugin on 1 of your own domains. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Install the plugin on twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Install the plugin on multiple domains that you own. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: Pricing details of Compliance Bar depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price shown above was current at the time this review was written. This may not be the actual price set by the product developer when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price here: Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Additional Plugin Info
Legal Pages Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assert on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for peace of mind.
For ”how to” videos of the plugin, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
In Conclusion
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website. 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 in your country or region.
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