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.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Hanif

How folks how do I get ried of the line that says:

"Welcome to the Muslim Professionals UK Community forums.

You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions, articles and access our other FREE features...

Place your ad code (i.e. adsense) here.

It belongs to the Phrase: $vbphrase[first_visit_message]

Anyone???

Ta,

Hanif

This is no longer a part of this hack, upgrade and it will go away. Alternatively you can remove the phrase from the template welcome_headers (it appears four times).

[Hanif]

Hi Ted,

You've mentioned Upgrade??? Do you mean upgrade to 3.5.1???

As I'm already running that???

I must say I do like this hack.

And rather than talk about two subjects in one thread I hope we(all) can have a
a discussion round the social engineering of building a community.

Speak soon my friend,

Hanif

[Ted S]

No, I mean you need to upgrade the hack to the latest version which does not have the ads phrase.

[HumourForum.com]

I have the latest version of the plugin installed and I even tried re-installing it but I still get:
"Welcome to the [ARG:3 UNDEFINED] forums. " (for guests).
Please explain how to fix this - thanks.
I have managed to get the hack to work without the plugin as it was causing the "Admin CP Lockout" problem.

[Ted S]

It still appears that the template is not getting the phrases it needs. If you look at the code for the first welcome header you should have:

<phrase 1="faq.php?$session[sessionurl]" 2="register.php?$session[sessionurl]" 3="$vboptions[bbtitle]">$vbphrase[first_visit_message]</phrase>

{3} is suppose to set to you4 forum title. If it is not you can simply remove {3} from the phrase first_visit_message and insert the name of your website instead.

[Duncan]

Hi,

I installed everything but no welcome header comes up: http://www.HabboDiscussion.com

[Ted S]

Have you added the variable $welcomeheadrs to your header template? Is the plugin system enabled?

[Holidazed]

When I uploaded the xml product, I get an error at the top of the any of thr "Plugin Sytem" menu areas in the acp that says:

---------------------------------
Warning: array_merge() [function.array-merge]: Argument #1 is not an array in /includes/functions.php(1051) : eval()'d code on line 9
---------------------------------

It seems though, when I goto the "Plugin Manager" and uncheck the "Hook Location : "Welcome Headers [Alteration]" under the "parse_templates" section, the error goes away.

Ideas?

[Ted S]

bitg,
What other hacks, plugins, extensions are you running.

The code for Welcome Headers [Alteration] is as follows:

eval('$welcomeheaders = "' . fetch_template('welcome_headers') . '";');

This is causing problems on some installs but not others. To date I am unable to locate the source of the issue -- new installs, upgrades, they all function for me. The only thing I can assume is that some specific plugin, php version or something else that I don't have on my sites is causing a conflict.

[caliman]

Ted you are getting a work out on this.
I agree - you should get a plugin/hack list from everybody having problems with this.
Mine works so you can scratch off TopxStats.