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 a law or regulation.
Your website must comply with various federal, state and even local laws and regulations, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring both 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 easy-to-install solution for WordPress users that can help make your website compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the digital business realm continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules constantly change, it’s vitally important that you stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your online presence is a fundamental part of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and other social sites could suspend your web apps, and you will not be accepted into a range of advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits.
At the very least, if your online business is not compliant, it may affect your visitors trust and confidence about doing any business with you in the future.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- How important it is to comply 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 business become more compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss in this post.
In this article, we review a complete compliance & disclaimer plugin for a WordPress-based website.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital business …
More info: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website or blog legally compliant:
Installation Is Easy And Quick
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like any WP plugin. Simply upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Page Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
You can easily modify the built-in legal page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support Team
The plugin developers provide dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist users.
Additional benefits include the following:
- Customized Legal Page Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a full library of training videos is provided if you need help.
- Use In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative 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 wherever you are located.
- Use In All Niches: As long as your website is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out those that are unnecessary.
Features
Compliance Bar provides many features to web site owners. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Content – If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies users and protects your site from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record and store the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – The plugin uses shortcodes to populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor browsers.
Compliance Bar Features – Details
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured is added to your WordPress admin area.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where you can input your information into entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” “Location Details,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to populate and display the information into your page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the profile fields, users can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen lists all of the compliance template pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of legal templates made available by the plugin when we last checked the 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
Creating legal pages for your blog or website is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” on the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
Icons can be changed. 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 Plugin: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can easily edit and delete the compliance pages from the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you 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 position, whether to display 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, and more …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different icons on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using particular theme frameworks (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” WordPress 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 specified 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 your compliance icons to display …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create unlimited customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover various uses in different areas of your website …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying 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 Section: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in the EU 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 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” tab …
(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” area, lists all of your compliance disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
User Feedback
Below are some of the testimonials and comments plugin customers have written about Compliance Bar:
”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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”If you are like me, you maybe have quite a few WordPress sites, all needing attention and most importantly, all needing to be on the right side of the law! I’ve tried several legal pages plugins and in pretty much every case, they let me down. They simply cause more work than they solve.To me, the answer should be simple. It should work and it should let me get on with building my site. After all, I know I NEED to do this stuff, but hey, I don’t really WANT to! So, for me, I don’t want those plugins that cause more work than they solve. Simple eh? Well now it is because Anton & John have just created this baby that is the answer to my needs. The Compliance Bar Plugin does what I need it to do then lets me get on with my empire building…Perfect!” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Useful Tips
Below are a few useful ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site includes adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist you with anything you need. Plugin users also get access to an entire set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your edition of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (Monday to Friday), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Software Cost
- Single License Edition – Install the plugin on one of your own domains. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Can be installed on up to twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Install the plugin on multiple domains that you own. Install the plugin on all client sites as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The price of this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin sells for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the product seller when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how to” videos showing how the software works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Install The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
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