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.

[JJRose]

Hello,
I wrote this a few days ago, but don't seem to have had a reply as yet (that I can see). So, here it is again, would be grateful for some assistance........


I have just installed the Welcome Message mod and all is working well. It's a great idea, and I agree it should be part of the standard VBulletin board.

I only have one small problem....

Each time I log in (as administrator), I get the 'unconfirmed' message. I clicked on the link to send another activation code (several times), but never got an email (am using correct email).

I wondered if the activation code request wasn't working, so I started up another plain registered user account, and in the admin control panel made this account 'awaiting email confirmation'. When I logged in as this user, I got the 'unconfirmed' message, as I should have, then clicked on the re-send activation link. I received the email and clicked on the link to activate. The account became activated again, and I got the right message again. So, it's not the activation code re-send feature that is at fault, because it's working for normal users.

It seems this is only happening for me at the administrator status level. I know that when I first started this board, I added this account manually in the admin control panel.

So I'm thinking that perhaps those accounts that were started up manually via the control panel are the issue?

I am wondering how I can get around this, as I don't want to constantly see this wrong message each time I log in as admin. I should also be able to receive the activation code by email.

The board is here: http://forum.visionary-spiritual-institute.com.au.

Looking forward to a solution to this issue.

Warm regards,
JJRose

[Ted S]

JJRose,
Check your admin account and be sure you are not in any other user groups or secondary groups that could effect this. Also, this hack is based on the default usergroup structure, if you have modified the core groups or created a new administrator group, it could mess things up. If this is the case, compare your usergroups against the logic in the welcome_headers template.

[filmking]

Thanks for your help on making the modification I requested. Works fine for me now.

[Ted S]

Important note: The welcome headers system has been ugpraded to include some major modifications. Please review the main thread and upgrade instructions prior to updating your version. Only one manual change is required to upgrade.

[Bubble #5]

Thanks Ted

Wow this hack sure has come a long way since it's first version. It's currently one of our favorite hacks :bunny: We're about to test it in beta 3 now

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Bubble #5

Wow this hack sure has come a long way since it's first version. It's currently one of our favorite hacks :bunny: We're about to test it in beta 3 now

Please let me know how it goes with the 3.6 beta. I did a lot of testing here but I haven't had much feedback on the new version yet!

[Bubble #5]

Here is what we found so far with beta 3 Ted. First, it won't let you edit the messages :surprised:

It gives you a "No Phrases Matched Your Query" error.

It appears to just be the link that's bad. Searching for the phrases manually DOES work. The problem appears to coming from these links:

<a href="./phrase.php?do=edit&e[1][phrase name]">click here</a>

Also the place where you enter in the amount of days to wait before the Post More Often message appears to not be working. We have it set to 14 and the message appears even though we posted today.

[Ted S]

Bubble,
Very interesting. I just installed another copy of beta 3 and the links as well as the post message seem to work.

To be clear, you were running 3.6 beta 3 with the 3.6 hack version (rather than the 3.5 version)?

If you don't mind, shoot me a pm with the url so I can take a look... if that's ok.

[rgbivens]

Great update! I love this!

-Grant

[Darat]

Thanks for the update Ted - makes it a lot easier to configure so an already top Mod becomes even better.

A quick question - have a I misunderstood the new "Step Five: General Announcements"? From your description I thought this would appear if someone clicked on "New Posts"?

ETA - Oops sorry my silly mistake :ermm: I had customised the old welcome_headers template and of course I hadn't reverted it so the upgrade was still using the old version.