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Welcome headers - Improve community registration rates
Version: 4.1.2, by Ted S Ted S is offline
Developer Last Online: Nov 2020 Show Printable Version Email this Page

Version: 3.5.5 Rating:
Released: 10-28-2005 Last Update: 08-14-2006 Installs: 1474
Uses Plugins Template Edits
 
No support by the author.

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.

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  • This modification may not be copied, reproduced or published elsewhere without author's permission.

Comments
  #682  
Old 03-21-2006, 02:18 PM
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bada_bing bada_bing is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ted S
Have you removed the original welcome header from the FORUMHOME template?
Thanks you I overlooked that and this is my second site should know better
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  #683  
Old 03-21-2006, 07:02 PM
GSX-Racing GSX-Racing is offline
 
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Works good, but one question in which I hope someone can help me.

The messages show up within a table about an inch wide (but then like 10 inches tall) rather than a 100% width table.

Anyway?
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  #684  
Old 03-22-2006, 10:20 AM
Calibre_k Calibre_k is offline
 
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welcome_postmoreoften WHEN WILL USERS SEE THAT?

How can I edit the messages & change color & background?
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  #685  
Old 03-22-2006, 01:53 PM
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tobe12 tobe12 is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Calibre_k
How can I edit the messages & change color & background?
I hope Ted will chime in and tell us how to do that.
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  #686  
Old 03-22-2006, 06:33 PM
Tru2Chevy Tru2Chevy is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Calibre_k
welcome_postmoreoften WHEN WILL USERS SEE THAT?
By default a user will see that if they are logged in, but they have not posted in over two weeks.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Calibre_k
How can I edit the messages & change color & background?
Both of these topics have been covered in this thread a few times....

- Justin
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  #687  
Old 03-22-2006, 08:59 PM
rivacityj rivacityj is offline
 
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Ok. IS anyone else having trouble getting register.php and sendmessage.php to link correctly when people try to use this on the vbadvanced CMPS index page? On the forum page everything works fine but on the index page the link is incorrect. I even added the two filenames in the cmps default settings. What am I doing wrong here?
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  #688  
Old 03-22-2006, 09:46 PM
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tobe12 tobe12 is offline
 
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Ok, found where you can modify the phrases

AdminCP > Languages & Phrases > Phrase Manager

These are the phrases that you can customize:
  • first_visit_message
  • welcome_neverposted
  • welcome_postmoreoften
  • welcome_unconfirmed
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  #689  
Old 03-22-2006, 10:34 PM
rivacityj rivacityj is offline
 
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Well this is probably considered bad coding but in the welcome_headers template I changed argument 2 to "http://www.myhomepage.com/forums/register.php" and changed the first message phrase so that it linked to "http://www.myhomepage.com/forums/sendmessage.php". I didn't know you could put html in a phrase. First I tried creating an argument 4 in the template but it wouldn't allow me to for some reason. I'm sure there was a cleaner way to do it but hey it worked.
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  #690  
Old 03-23-2006, 01:01 AM
Ted S Ted S is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tobe12
I hope Ted will chime in and tell us how to do that.
You can modify the layout by modifying the welcome_headers template and/ or the phrases first_visit_message, welcome_neverposted, welcome_postmoreoften, welcome_unconfirmed to fit your needs.
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  #691  
Old 03-23-2006, 01:02 AM
Ted S Ted S is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rivacityj
Ok. IS anyone else having trouble getting register.php and sendmessage.php to link correctly when people try to use this on the vbadvanced CMPS index page? On the forum page everything works fine but on the index page the link is incorrect. I even added the two filenames in the cmps default settings. What am I doing wrong here?
This hack was not written to work with any particular portal system and may not be compatible with the special pages created on such a system.
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