Board Optimization - Welcome headers - Improve community registration rates

Attention vB 3.7 users: Please see the 3.7 version of this add-on.

The out of the box vBulletin style does not have a robust method of informing users about their current activity status or user level. As a result, guests entering on a page other than the homepage (which is most often the case) have no idea what a forum is about or that they may need to register. Additionally, there are no visible status indicators, making it confusing for unconfirmed, unapproved or new members to know what to do or where to begin.

To help solve these problems, the welcome headers plugin creates a 5-part set of conditionals to better introduce members to your community while pushing them to register, activate or post. The default templates are just that, default ? I highly encourage you to tweak the language and functions to meet the needs of your actual community environment.

Modifications/ Instructions:
Template edits: 2
Plugins: 1 (adds 1 template and several settings)

This template hack should take under 5 minutes to implement and customize.

What?s new in 4.2
The 4.2 version of this addon functions in the same way as previous versions but with modifications to the backend code. The addon is now designed to independently review conditional statements to make it easier to add new messages. If you are upgrading from a previous version and have changed the template welcome_headers, this version will revert your changes. There is no new functionality in this upgrade and it is optional.

Install Instructions:
Full install instructions can be found in the attached file. This addon requires adding a plugin and modifying one template.

Customizing the content / messages
To customize which messages appear or what they say, go to vBulletin options, select the "Welcome Header System" group and configure the options as desired. Each phase can be modified by adding translation text.

Details on how it all works:
Step One: Turning lurkers into Members
For most forums, upwards of 50% of traffic comes through search engines or deep links to threads, profiles and categories. Out of the box, vBulletin only displays a welcome message on the forum-homepage, meaning someone who enters through any other page does not have the benefit of seeing an explanation of the site or welcome message. The guest welcome header is used to explain the purpose of your site, sell users on the benefits of joining the community and push them to proactively register.

Step Two: Making Users Confirm their Account
Many vBulletin sites require email confirmation prior to being able to post or access an account. However, activation emails are often misdirected to spam folders, ignored or simply deleted, leaving unconfirmed users with little access rights and no explanation as to what is wrong with their account. The unconfirmed welcome header is used to inform unconfirmed members of their account status and to direct them to automatically resend their activation email, or to contact the webmaster for support.

Step Three: Get non-posting users to post
Another chronic problem faced by many forums is insuring users post after registering. Many new visitors register in order to access certain features with the intent of posting, but never do so. The never posted welcome header is used to encourage users to post for their first time and should ideally be linked directly to an introductions or new member forum to help users "break the ice".

Step Four: Getting inactive users to become more active
Many members start out as lurkers, register, post once or twice and then go back to being lurkers. Often time these members are not actively thinking about participating in topics or are still shy about interacting. The inactivity welcome header reminds members to make a post after a predetermined amount of time as specified by the forum administrator.

Step Five: General Announcements
Unfortunately the standard announcements are often overlooked or never even seen by members who use the "new posts feature". As a result, urgent notices may be missed by users causing problems and high volumes of support requests. The global announcement welcome header creates a message shown to all members who do not fall into the other welcome header groups (guest, unconfirmed, never posted, inactive). Whether it be a scheduled outage/ upgrade, an important request or the need to display an advertisement in a prominent spot, global announcements allow an administrator to effectively and quickly display messages in a way that is certain to be read.

Optional: One-View Messages
Some forums find that users grow tired of seeing the messages thus there is an option to show the welcome messages only once per browser session as determined by using a cookie.

Optional: Custom Messages
Welcome Headers addresses 5 common needs, your forum probably has more. I highly encourage you to add messages based on profile fields, user states and other criteria that may impact your users.

The results:
At first glance this system may seem a bit superfluous, however, the numbers rarely lie, nor does the feedback. On ScubaBoard.Com, the site the system was originally tested on, posting rates increased by over 100%; new user registration rates by over 60%; user activity by 50% and the welcome/ intro & greets forum has exploded over 400%. If you browse through the pages of this thread you will find even more real life testimonials and experiences from the thousands of people using the system.

vbSEO Add-ons
Some forums have found that after adding welcome headers, the welcome message shows up in their search descriptions. To address this issue, user's at vbSEO have recommended turning the guest welcome header into an image -- this way there's no duplicate content for the bots to spider. To learn more click here. My recommendation is that you test this option if you are allowing bots to spider your front-end pages.

Limited Guest Viewing compatibility
The Welcome Headers System is designed to work with the Limited Guest Viewing without any conflict. To insure that welcome header messages do not show up at the same time as the limited guest viewing message, please be sure you are running welcome headers version 4.1.3 or greater and have enabled the suppression option.

Support
Please post any enhancement or technical questions you may have and I will do my best to respond in a timely manner. Please note: I can not guarantee an immediate response and am unable to assist with integrating this addon with other addons or with HTML related questions.

Updates
4.2.1 - Fixed bug with global message
4.2.0 - Changed template conditionals to simplify customizations
4.1.9 - Added ability to disable messages if using Limited Guest Viewing system
4.1.3 - Added support for Limited Guest Viewing system

[Ted S]

There is an option to suppress welcome headers with limited guest viewing, toggle it off (or on if it's already off).

[cajunboy2208]

That did the trick, I thought it would of disabled the limited guest viewing... but it is still enabled.

Thank you! =)

[caliman]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Well you'll have to weigh your perceived understanding of SEO versus effectively communicating to your visitors. It's a tradeoff every site makes. If your end thought is that welcome headers should not be on every page then by all means, don't use it. You can easily customize the default welcome header that comes with vbulletin for your forumhome page.

Perceived? Nice shot.
This mod works great, but it does dilute.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by caliman

Perceived? Nice shot.
This mod works great, but it does dilute.

Obviously any site-wide copy is going to have an impact how what the spiders see, how it impacts your rankings is a matter of debate but that's not really the point you're getting at.

If the mod works great for you, disabling it or using it on only one page would seem unwise. Why not try the vbSEO recommendation and turn your guest message (which is all the spiders see) into an image?

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by cajunboy2208

That did the trick, I thought it would of disabled the limited guest viewing... but it is still enabled.

Nope. The reason the option exists is that you now have the possibility of showing two similar messages if someone triggers the limited guest viewing system. My suggestion would be to create a short message for limited guest viewing as the welcome header will already give them an intro to the site.

[kiFF]

Is there a header for users that have only posted once? I'd like there to be a searate message for users with only 1 post.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by kiFF

Is there a header for users that have only posted once? I'd like there to be a searate message for users with only 1 post.

Welcome Headers is only meant to be an example of what you can do... you can and should be customizing it with messages and new conditionals that make sense for your forum.

[kiFF]

I don't know how to do that. Do I have to go into the templates and type my own code? If so, can you just tell me what I'd need for users who only have 1 post please?

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by kiFF

I don't know how to do that. Do I have to go into the templates and type my own code? If so, can you just tell me what I'd need for users who only have 1 post please?

Yes you would need to go into the template and edit the very basic html & vb conditional code. There's already a message that checks for post count so you can more or less copy that and change the post number and resulting message.

[kiFF]

Thank you. It took me a while to figure out, because I was trying:

<if condition="$bbuserinfo[posts]=1

When it should have been

<if condition="$bbuserinfo[posts]<2

That's wierd though, because you would think that the message would show up if you had no posts, because 0 is less than 2, but I guess the other header overrides it?