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Get users to register, and keep them coming back.
Here are a few tips to help you get users to register on your forum, and keep them coming back. These may be "old hat" to some of you, but I thought I would put this together for those new to running forums. Feel free to post your own suggestions. I hope you find these helpful!
Encourage users to register, and walk them through the registration / approval process.
Ted S created a great plugin that will tell guests about your site, encourage them to register, and also keep them informed of what to do as they go through account activation. For me, this almost totally eliminated support questions from users wondering why they couldn't access a certain part of the site (because they hadn't activated their account yet using the link in the activation e-mail that vBulletin sends out.) I really like this plugin, but I suggest having it display at the very end of the navbar template instead of in the header template as the installation instructions state. Doing this will keep it below the area that shows thread titles and forum descriptions which should help SEO. Here's the link to the plugin: Welcome headers - Improve community registration rates - vBulletin.org Forum
Require registration to view attachments.
Changing your Unregistered / Not Logged In usergroup to NOT have access to view attachments can dramatically increase the number of new registrations you receive. It can also cut down on your bandwidth usage, since everyone in the world won't be anonymously linking to that neato video attachment on your site. To do this, go to AdminCP -> Usergroups -> Usergroup Manager and edit the Unregistered / Not Logged In usergroup. You'll see a setting called Can Download Attachments; change this to NO.
Default all new users to be subscribed with instant e-mail notification to any thread they start or reply.
This will keep users coming back by sending them e-mails whenever there is a reply to a thread in which they have participated; maybe threads that they have FORGOTTEN they participated in. To do this, go to AdminCP -> vBulletin Options -> vBulletin Options -> User Registration Options ->
Default Registration Options and choose Instant email notification from the Automatic Thread Subscription Mode dropdown. If you want to change all CURRENT users to also default to this option, go to AdminCP -> Maintenance -> Execute SQL Query and choose Instant email notifications from the Automatic Query dropdown at the top. (NOTE: You will have to edit your vBulletin config.php to allow your userid to execute queries before using this option.)
Remove the post content from thread subscription e-mails.
If a user receives an e-mail telling them that one of their subscribed threads has a reply, and it has the complete text of the reply right there in the e-mail, MANY times they won't bother clicking the link to visit your site to read the thread. Removing it from the e-mail forces them to visit your site to read, and they will possibly spend more time browsing. To do this, go to AdminCP -> Languages & Phrases -> Search in Phrases. Once there, enter the word notify into the Search For Text field and choose the Phrase Variable Name Only radio button. The results should show the notify phrase, which contains the body of the subscribed thread e-mails. Click the Edit button on the right, then click the Copy Default Text button near the bottom. This will copy the default contents of the phrase to the textarea at the bottom, and allow you to customize it. Remove the following text from the textarea, and click Save:
Encourage users to register, and walk them through the registration / approval process.
Ted S created a great plugin that will tell guests about your site, encourage them to register, and also keep them informed of what to do as they go through account activation. For me, this almost totally eliminated support questions from users wondering why they couldn't access a certain part of the site (because they hadn't activated their account yet using the link in the activation e-mail that vBulletin sends out.) I really like this plugin, but I suggest having it display at the very end of the navbar template instead of in the header template as the installation instructions state. Doing this will keep it below the area that shows thread titles and forum descriptions which should help SEO. Here's the link to the plugin: Welcome headers - Improve community registration rates - vBulletin.org Forum
Require registration to view attachments.
Changing your Unregistered / Not Logged In usergroup to NOT have access to view attachments can dramatically increase the number of new registrations you receive. It can also cut down on your bandwidth usage, since everyone in the world won't be anonymously linking to that neato video attachment on your site. To do this, go to AdminCP -> Usergroups -> Usergroup Manager and edit the Unregistered / Not Logged In usergroup. You'll see a setting called Can Download Attachments; change this to NO.
Default all new users to be subscribed with instant e-mail notification to any thread they start or reply.
This will keep users coming back by sending them e-mails whenever there is a reply to a thread in which they have participated; maybe threads that they have FORGOTTEN they participated in. To do this, go to AdminCP -> vBulletin Options -> vBulletin Options -> User Registration Options ->
Default Registration Options and choose Instant email notification from the Automatic Thread Subscription Mode dropdown. If you want to change all CURRENT users to also default to this option, go to AdminCP -> Maintenance -> Execute SQL Query and choose Instant email notifications from the Automatic Query dropdown at the top. (NOTE: You will have to edit your vBulletin config.php to allow your userid to execute queries before using this option.)
Remove the post content from thread subscription e-mails.
If a user receives an e-mail telling them that one of their subscribed threads has a reply, and it has the complete text of the reply right there in the e-mail, MANY times they won't bother clicking the link to visit your site to read the thread. Removing it from the e-mail forces them to visit your site to read, and they will possibly spend more time browsing. To do this, go to AdminCP -> Languages & Phrases -> Search in Phrases. Once there, enter the word notify into the Search For Text field and choose the Phrase Variable Name Only radio button. The results should show the notify phrase, which contains the body of the subscribed thread e-mails. Click the Edit button on the right, then click the Copy Default Text button near the bottom. This will copy the default contents of the phrase to the textarea at the bottom, and allow you to customize it. Remove the following text from the textarea, and click Save:
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