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.

[Smitty]

Originally Posted by roscoe

Does this thing mess up the "Paid Subscriptions" API. Now that i have it installed, the dam thing does not work? Anywork around for this?

What doesn't work on it? I can't see any issue with Paid Subscriptions on my board.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by roscoe

Does this thing mess up the "Paid Subscriptions" API. Now that i have it installed, the dam thing does not work? Anywork around for this?

This plugin just adds templates and a litttle code to calculate the last posting date. There's nothing that touches the paid subscriptions what so ever.

[Smitty]

I'd like to add some phrases / messages as has been discussed in a number of posts. So that I can reduce template and phrase modifications to a minimum, can I change the xml file instead? For example, after 8 days I move accounts (signups) that have not activated their accounts to a special user group (long story - something I started several years ago...) Can I add something like:

PHP Code:

<if condition="is_member_of($bbuserinfo, 13)">
    <!-- email verification not completed -->
    <br />
    <table class="tborder" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" border="0" width="100%" align="center">
    <tr> 
        <td class="alt1">
            <phrase 1="$vboptions[bbtitle]">$vbphrase[email_verification_not_completed]</phrase>
        </td>
    </tr> 
    </table>
    <!-- / email verification not completed -->
<else /> 


and at the bottom add

PHP Code:

<phrase name="[email_verification_not_completed]"><![CDATA[<<font color="red">Although you have Registered, your account has not been verified so is not yet active! To Activate your Registration you have to verify your Registration by clicking a special link in the Welcome email which was sent to you when you registered.</font> If you have lost this email, or if it never arrived, please go <a href="./register.php?do=requestemail">Here</a> to request another activation email be sent to you. If you suspect you entered an incorrect email address, go <a href="./sendmessage.php">Here</a> and let me know so I can fix your record in the database. Please be sure to adjust your spam filter to 'White List' (allow) e-mail from xxx.com so that the Verification / Activation e-mail can reach you.]]></phrase> 


to the xml file.

My main interest is to be able to uninstall, if I need to, with as few template changes as possible.

[forum_maniac]

I was concerned about the fact that the same text would appear on every page, so I modified the templates so that the welcome header will only appear on select pages (such as index, faq, search, etc.). I realize this diminishes the effectiveness of the welcome headers, but I did not like Google to see the same text over and over again.

I also thought about hiding the welcome text for spiders / bots, but I was concerned this would be against the SE TOS and would get me banned. I decided against this even though it seems some forums do that, for example one major forum has their pages at Google, but when you click on the search result you get a page that tells you that you must register.

Any thoughts?

Originally Posted by freefallu

just to follow up on the SEO idea. With the recent big daddy google algo update I would advise keeping the guest message as short as possible. Googles params for differntiating a page have got stricter. That is to say the percentage to which content must be different in relation to the overall % is now higher .

If you have a small thread the header could take up 50% of the overall content , thus having the page flagged as a backdoor page. Too many backdoor pages and your out of the index ..

Therefore I would suggest keeping the header to no more than 2 sentances.

[kenji4861]

Guys this totally works.. Use to be the same 100 or so posters.. but adding this module.. brought in.. many new posters

Thank you!

http://www.spoofee.com/forums

[Ted S]

I have updated the plugin to include better instructions and a vbSEO version which moves the templates into the navbar as per their recommendations.

[FunaGuy]

gr8 upgrade
install

[creedmaniac]

Originally Posted by peterska2

In your header template replace

$welcomeheaders

with

<if confition="THIS_SCRIPT!=adv_index">$welcomeheaders</if>

sorry it took so long...thanks!

[BeaLzeBuB]

when i installed this hack => https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=82900 (Microstats - load times, server loads, queries, uncached templates)

its reports me

Page generated in 1.51093 seconds with 17 queries(1 queries for uncached templates) [Server Loads: 4.75 4.04 : 4.01]
Uncached templates: welcome_headers (1)

how i fix that?

[Nathan2006]

Thank you for the update Ted S