One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to be on the wrong side of 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 financial costs, 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 solution for WordPress users that can help make your site fully compliant just minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules keep changing, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains legally compliant, especially if your online presence is a fundamental part of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not approve your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed into a range of leading advertising and merchant networks.
If your website is not compliant, you could also 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 in compliance, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to maintain compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or using online, and
- There are inexpensive solutions for WordPress users that can help your website become more compliant, such as the solution that we review in this post.
If your website lacks in areas of compliance, below we review a simple WordPress plugin you should know more about.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your site …
More info: Compliance Bar
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Here we have listed just some of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website instantly compliant:
Fast And Easy To Install And Use. Ready To Go To Work In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin is very easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your administrator area and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Page Templates
You can easily make changes to the pre-built templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress visual editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support Team
The plugin develop provides a dedicated plugin support team to assist you if you experience any difficulties.
Some additional benefits include:
- 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 provided if users need help.
- 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 built-in legal templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Can Be Used For All Website Purposes: As long as your website or blog is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any templates that you don’t need.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just some of these features:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in no time.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Compliance Bar displays links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Restricted Information – If your website has content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, 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 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 displays an attractive bar that notifies your users and protects you from non-compliance.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – The plugin can record and store the IP addresses of your visitors 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 to populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (even in the popups).
- Works On Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor web browsers.
Using Compliance Bar
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” area will be added to your WP backend.
Let’s briefly review these pages …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where your business information can be input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Company Address,” “Location Details,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to populate and display the information into your page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of your compliance pages …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of legal templates made available by the plugin last time we checked the 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
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 the “Save” button on the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can edit and delete the compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing your legal templates 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
You have many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to display 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 various 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 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” WordPress 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 configured your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your legal using a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature your compliance bar …
PopUps
If your website includes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you complete control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want the Pop Ups to display immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image 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 edit the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” screen …
(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” area, lists all of your compliance page templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
Testimonials
Here are a few of the testimonials and feedback users 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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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Useful Tips
Here are some useful ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you have 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 24/7 plugin support to assist users if they experience any issues. Plugin users also have access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund twice the amount of your cost of purchasing.
Plugin Cost
- Single License Edition – Can be installed on 1 domain that you own. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on up to twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Install the plugin on multiple as many of your own domains as you like. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The cost of purchasing the Compliance Bar plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software sells for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the software author when you visit the plugin 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
Additional Plugin Information
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
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.
In Conclusion
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 information, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.
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