One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering financial losses, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress users that can help make your site fully compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules constantly change, it’s vitally important that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains legally compliant, especially if your digital presence is a fundamental component of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t 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 apps, and you will not be accepted into a number of leading advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If your business online is not in compliance, you could face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your digital presence is not compliant, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws that govern your business,
- The importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or endorsing in your website, and
- There are plugins for WordPress users that can help your website become compliant, such as the solution that we discuss in this post.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress users that provides a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital business.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-install and simple-to-use WordPress plugin that contains over twenty customizable compliance disclaimers for your online business …
More info: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website or blog compliant:
Quick Installation
Compliance Bar is quite easy to install. Just upload a zip file containing the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Page Templates Are Easy To Edit
You can easily make changes to the pre-built legal templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG content editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated team to help users.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Legal Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a complete library of training videos is available if users need help.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the legal page templates provided in Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Use For All Website Purposes: As long as your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore those that you don’t require.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers many features to website owners. Here are just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Attractive Icons – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Sensitive Content – If your website includes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), you can display popups that force users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying visitors and covering your website from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records and stores your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin 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 or blog, (even in the popups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the mobile browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
Once the plugin has been installed, the plugin’s “Settings” section is added to your WordPress dashboard.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your business details can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” “Contact Phone,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to automatically insert and display the information from your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the user profile fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section contains all of the plugin’s page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of legal templates made available by the plugin when we last checked their website:
- 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
You can create compliance pages for your website quickly and easily simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar icons are customizable. 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 Page Templates
You can easily edit and delete your legal pages in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing 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. compliance 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, icon size, specifying 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 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 lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using particular 3rd-party theme frameworks (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” 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 specified your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your legal using a visually attractive 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 show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display popups that blocks access to users who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you complete control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover various uses in other sections of your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want the Pop Ups to display immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you edit the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” tab …
(EU Cookies Section: 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 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
Below are some of the testimonials and comments that plugin customers have submitted for 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 – Useful Tips
Below are some additional ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If you include content for adult viewers on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated team to help users if they experience any issues. Plugin users also have access to an entire library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 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 (M – F), the plugin developers will refund double your purchase price.
Software Pricing
- Single Edition – Can be installed on one domain that you own. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on twenty-five of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License Edition – Install the plugin on all of your own domains. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: The price of the Compliance Bar software can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the price at the time this article was published. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the software developer when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current price: Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar – Additional Info
Legal Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For demo videos of the plugin in action, 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 plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.
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