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.

[Vinny445]

Can some one please tell me what this actually adds to the whole forums? I can't figure it out for the life of me; it looks the same as before I installed it. Specifically what does this do? Does it change the look of the message? Does it add a message where it's not normally possible? Because I go to create a notice after uninstalling the product and I can still produce the same notices...

[Wired1]

Originally Posted by Vinny445

Can some one please tell me what this actually adds to the whole forums? I can't figure it out for the life of me; it looks the same as before I installed it. Specifically what does this do? Does it change the look of the message? Does it add a message where it's not normally possible? Because I go to create a notice after uninstalling the product and I can still produce the same notices...

So... you didn't read the description at all? First, this mod is geared towards... REGISTRATION RATES. This means it's geared towards people who are NOT already registered. Ergo, you won't see anything involving the mod unless you log out.

[Vinny445]

Well, my forums are set to show a login screen and not any actual forums, so that was why I was asking. Does this login screen override any mods? When you simple deny all access (http://forums.sincityrp.com for example) ?

Also, I can't find anything like the second screenshot anywhere. I looked under vB options and it isn't there. :s

[Wired1]

What version of vB do you have?

[Vinny445]

3.7.0, the final release

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Vinny445

Well, my forums are set to show a login screen and not any actual forums, so that was why I was asking. Does this login screen override any mods? When you simple deny all access (http://forums.sincityrp.com for example) ?

Also, I can't find anything like the second screenshot anywhere. I looked under vB options and it isn't there. :s

Have you installed the necessary template edits along with the product addon and are you vieiwng as a guest/member with no posts/ no recent activity?

[Vinny445]

Yeah, I'm on a proxy with another user and I can see the message the says you haven't posted. I'd be money that the disable everything and show a login for unlogged in people overrides it, whatever. My point is, couldn't all this be accomplished without this mod? Like this message that shows up when you don't post. When I uninstall the mod I see options to do the same thing manually. Does this mod just set up the messages for you, or what?

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Vinny445

Yeah, I'm on a proxy with another user and I can see the message the says you haven't posted. I'd be money that the disable everything and show a login for unlogged in people overrides it, whatever. My point is, couldn't all this be accomplished without this mod? Like this message that shows up when you don't post. When I uninstall the mod I see options to do the same thing manually. Does this mod just set up the messages for you, or what?

Not letting people see pages would render the guest message useless... if a guest gets an error there's no welcome header. There are however 3 other messages that would work however if enabled.

If you're seeing options to "do the same thing" then you're probably using 3.7 which includes the notices manager which works just like welcome headers. This version of the addon is for 3.5 which contains no such tool.

[Marvin Hlavac]

I just noticed my Welcome Headers are not working at all. Is it possible my upgrade to vB3.7.0 caused this? What should I do?

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Marvin Hlavac

I just noticed my Welcome Headers are not working at all. Is it possible my upgrade to vB3.7.0 caused this? What should I do?

What do you mean not working? Do you see anything in the notices manager? Have you updated your templates to have the 3.7 variables?