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.

[biggjoe]

Hey Ted!

Thanks again for all of your help! I updated the 'coppa' aspect of the 'welcome header phrase' and it all worked PERFECTLY.

Hey, do you think it might be worth it to officially add this 'coppa phrase' to the the latest build of this hack, since a few people have asked for it? Just a thought.

Anyway, thanks again amigo!

J.

Originally Posted by Ted S

biggjoe - Here's the updated COPPA code (note the change in the phrase tag)

<if condition="is_member_of($bbuserinfo, 4)">
	<!-- unapproved user message -->
	<br />
	<table class="tborder" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" border="0" width="100%" align="center">
	<thead>
	<tr> 
		<td class="alt1">
			<phrase 1="$vboptions[bbtitle]" 2="$bbuserinfo[username]" >$vbphrase[welcome_coppa]</phrase>
		</td>
	</tr> 
	</thead>
	</table>
	<!-- / unapproved user message -->
<else />

[Ted S]

biggjoe,
I'll probably add it to the next version.

2fast4ya,
You need to modify your forumhome template as explained in the hack instructions (basically you ened to remove the original welcome message).

[art99]

If you use one of the STEEL styles (Steel red, Steel green, Steel purple...), posted in the "vB3.5 Styles" forum, you need to do an additional modification in order to make this mod to work.
These styles use two nav bars, one above and one below the Login "boxes". The visitor will see two "Welcome" messages, one above the top nav bar and one below it.
Follow Ted S' directions first, and then go to the navbar template, scroll page down about 1/5, find and delete the following code:
---------------------------------
</if>
<if condition="THIS_SCRIPT == 'index' AND $show['guest']">
<!-- guest welcome message -->
<div class="navbar" style="margin-bottom:5pt;margin-top:5px;font-size:8pt">
Welcome to $vboptions[bbtitle]. $threadinfo[title] $vboptions[keywords]<br />
<phrase 1="faq.php$session[sessionurl_q]" 2="register.php$session[sessionurl_q]">$vbphrase[first_visit_message]</phrase></div>
<!-- / guest welcome message -->

<else />
---------------------------------

I am not a coder, and I did this by trial and error. Ted or some of you coders, may want to look into this to make sure I didn't take out more than I should, LOL.

[2fast4ya]

^ that worked. thank you for atleast looking at my page and reading my post all the way through.

[teamgofast]

great addition to my site, clicks install!!

[swa]

awesome plugin! got it working here http://www.dellusers.com/forum

[testpig]

Originally Posted by Ted S

biggjoe,
I'll probably add it to the next version.

2fast4ya,
You need to modify your forumhome template as explained in the hack instructions (basically you ened to remove the original welcome message).

Hi Ted.
Installed perfectly into vB 3.5.1 (with multiple plugins, a gallery, and anything else I thought would be purdy to bolt onto the board)

VERY nice work

[King Kovifor]

Originally Posted by King Kovifor

I'm Getting this DB Error:

Database error in vBulletin 3.5.1:

Invalid SQL:
select count(*) as newposts from post where dateline >= 08:02 PM, 11-12-2005 and visible = 1;

MySQL Error : You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ':02 PM, 11-12-2005 and visible = 1' at line 1
Error Number: 1064

ted?

[Ted S]

King Kovifor,
As I said before, this hack does not use any queries thus it can not cause an error with one unless you have changed something else.

[Alien]

I get the same invalid html issue so i temporarily have this turned off..

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...com%2Fforum%2F

Using site above as an example (check first error on that page involving table issue, other errors are unrelated to this hack). This bug even slows down the page loading for those who login and logout every day.. When they login there is a lengthy pause at times, and sometimes they timeout altogether until they refresh a couple of times or try a few more times. This does not occur on firefox just internet explorer. It is 100% linked to this modification.

The actual html LOOKS fine on your end, so I can't figure out how to fix it and it's driving me bonkers. Any idea? Does it hate so many if statements or something?