Welcome headers - Improve community registration rates

vBulletin 3.6 users click here for the 3.6 compatible version of this plugin.

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 4.1.0
The 4.1.0 version of this system is a complete rewrite from earlier versions. All of the original functionality still exists; however, the system has been improved to make it much more modular. With the new version, you can now turn on/off individual welcome header messages, configure the content and change other settings all from your ACP Options panel. Additionally, a 5th welcome header has been added for global announcements. With the exception of one small phrase change, this upgrade is seamless to upgrade.

Upgrade Instructions:
Full upgrade instructions can be found in the attached zip file. However, to avoid confusion anyone upgrading from the 4.0.x version of this plugin to 4.1.x should do the following:

1 ? Upload the new version of the plugin file based on your version of vBulletin (3.5 or 3.6). Be sure to set the override option to ?yes?.
2 ? Go to your phrase manager and search for the phrase ?first_visit_message?, copy any customizations you have made to this phrase into the phrase ?welcome_guest?.
3 ? Go to your vBulletin options, select the ?Welcome Header System? group and configure the options as desired.

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 websites, upwards of 50% of traffic (or more) 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.

The results:
At first glance this system may seem a bit superfluous, however, the numbers rarely lie, nor does the feedback. Since posting this plugin in October, it has risen to over 1700 confirmed installations and is now one of the top 5 vBulletin plugins. On ScubaBoard.Com, the site the system was originally tested on, posting rates have 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.

But enough about why -- give it a shot yourself and let me know how your results turn out.

vBulletin 3.6 users click here for the 3.6 compatible version of this plugin.

[creedmaniac]

how can i get this to not show up on the main vbadvanced index page?

[mhoooodi]

can i .. add a header for one user only .?
???

[King of Kings]

Just installed it and looks great. So easy to install, even for me

[peterska2]

Originally Posted by creedmaniac

how can i get this to not show up on the main vbadvanced index page?

In your header template replace

$welcomeheaders

with

<if confition="THIS_SCRIPT!=adv_index">$welcomeheaders</if>

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by mhoooodi

can i .. add a header for one user only .?
???

Sure thing. Just edit the template welcome_headers and add a new conditional using the field username or userid.

[webgroup]

Originally Posted by Cueball

Thank you for such a fast response. Unfortunately, I still get the same message logged in as any user. I reverted both templates and uninstalled the product and started from scratch. Cant seem to figure out what I am doing wrong. I rarely have any problems installing hacks, so I am confused as to why I am having an issue with one that so many people have already installed successfully. Any other suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

The same is happening to me.

Any help?? my users are getting annoyed

Thanks!!

[webgroup]

Originally Posted by mawby

If like me, you want a banner to be displayed to people who have a paid subscription which is about to expire, you can achieve it with the following.
(Please note I am not a PHP coder and haven't written a vB Plugin before so if someone more knowledgeable could check the following for me I would be most grateful.)

Firstly create a global phrase named "welcome_soontoexpire" containing the message you want displayed. I chose the following...

<center><strong>Your Club Membership will expire in {1} days.</strong><br /><br />We hope you will choose to stay with us!</center>

...which will tell them their paid subscription is about to run out, plus it will tell them the number of days they have left.

Next edit the "welcome_headers" template and add...

<if condition="$headerexpiremembership != 0">
	<!-- / membership nearly expired -->
	<br />
	<table class="tborder" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" border="0" width="100%" align="center">
	<tr> 
		<td class="alt1" style="background-color:#FF0000;">
			<phrase 1="$headerexpiremembership">$vbphrase[welcome_soontoexpire]</phrase>
		</td>
	</tr> 
	</table>
	<!-- / membership nearly expired -->

<else />

...before this line of code.

<if condition="$headerstime - 1209600 > $bbuserinfo[lastpost]">

Also add the following to the very end of the template.

</if>

Finally create a plugin for the "Welcome Headers" product with a hook location of "global_start". Set the title to "Soon to expire memberships", and add the following as the PHP plugin code.

PHP Code:

$subscriptions_reminders = $vbulletin->db->query_read("
    SELECT subscriptionid, expirydate
    FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "subscriptionlog AS subscriptionlog
    WHERE expirydate <= " . (TIMENOW + (86400 * 14)) . "
        AND status = 1
        AND userid = " . $vbulletin->userinfo['userid'] . "
");

while ($subscriptions_reminder = $vbulletin->db->fetch_array($subscriptions_reminders))
{
    $headerexpiremembership = round((($subscriptions_reminder['expirydate'] - TIMENOW) / 86400),1);
} 


That's it! It is hard coded to display the banner when the paid subscription has 14 days or less remaining. You can change the 14 on the following line to be however many days notice you want.

PHP Code:

    WHERE expirydate <= " . (TIMENOW + (86400 * 14)) . " 


any updates on this feature?

[webgroup]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Well at a minimum you should remove:

<thead>
<phrase 1="$vboptions[bbtitle]">$vbphrase[welcome_to_the_x]</phrase></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="alt1" colspan="<if condition="$vboptions['showmoderatorcolumn']">6<else />5</if>">
<phrase 1="faq.php$session[sessionurl_q]" 2="register.php$session[sessionurl_q]">$vbphrase[first_visit_message]</phrase>
</td>
</tr>

However, your template is in need of some restoration. You have a </if> tag that doesnt correspond with an opening one as an example.

I didn't read this before, this fixed my problem!!

Thanks!!

[arcadian_girl]

its only been about a week, but already i seem to be getting more registrations i installed the quick register hack too, to make it easier for ppl to register.. seems to be working

now if i could only get them to post more...

[roscoe]

Does this thing mess up the "Paid Subscriptions" API. Now that i have it installed, the dam thing does not work? Anywork around for this?