What Would Seth Godin Do

Seth Godin advocates using cookies to distinguish between new and returning visitors to your site:

“One opportunity that’s underused is the idea of using cookies to treat returning visitors differently than newbies. It’s more work at first, but it can offer two experiences to two different sorts of people.” (Source: In the Middle, Starting)

I built this WordPress plugin to implement Seth Godin’s idea. It reduces the “work at first” to almost nothing.

By default, new visitors to your blog will see a small box above each post containing the words “If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!” After 5 visits the message disappears. You can customize this message, its lifespan, and its location. The message can be excluded from certain pages if desired.

New visitors will appreciate some context and background information about your site. This is your chance to offer them a special welcome and invite them to become permanent subscribers. You can also specify a message for return visitors.

I can be reached at wwsgd AT richardkmiller DOT com. I appreciate comments and suggestions.

Installation is easy:

1. Download the WWSGD WordPress plugin and unzip it.
2. Copy the what-would-seth-godin-do folder to your WordPress plugins folder (/wp-content/plugins/).
3. Activate the plugin on the Plugins page.
4. Customize settings in the Settings panel, WWSGD subpanel.

That’s it!

Subversion (SVN) users can check out the plugin directly from the WordPress.org repository:

https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/what-would-seth-godin-do/

1. 

   After activating What Would Seth Godin Do, you can configure settings in the Settings -> WWSGD menu. You can customize the message, its lifespan, and its location. You can also display a message for return visitors.

2. 

   Your welcome message appears before (or after) each post for the specified length of time.

2.1.0

• Removed jQuery, switching to plain JavaScript
• Moved display logic to JavaScript
• Excluded IDs can be separated by commas or spaces
• Updated links

2.0.6

• Bug fix: Make WWSGD compatible with SSL by using plugins_url() instead of WP_PLUGIN_URL

2.0.5

• Bug fix: The welcome message was not being displayed on individual posts and page when certain plugins were installed (e.g. WordPress SEO by Yoast) that use the_content or the_excerpt internally. (Thanks to Rob Woodgate.)
• Tested with WordPress 3.6
• Updated informational links in Admin panel
• Updated copyright year
• Added License tag (GPLv2)

2.0.4

• Fixed problem with jQuery not being loaded

2.0.3

• WWSGD only sets one cookie now, not a separate cookie for each post or page. (Fixed regression.)

2.0.2

• Moved JS from header to footer. Fixed loading of JS file from non-standard WP paths. (Thanks to Kenn Wilson and gwk0.)
• Tested with WordPress 3.2

2.0.1

• Fixed bug: I forgot to set an expiration on the cookie.

2.0

• Cookie logic now occurs in the browser (using jQuery) instead of on the server to prevent welcome message from being displayed to search engines. (Thanks to Chris Abraham for sending a patch.)
• User can now exclude specific posts or pages from displaying the welcome message.
• Cleaned up Settings panel to match WordPress UI.
• Added better feedback links.

1.7.3

• Don’t show message on excerpts
• Tested with WordPress 3.1.3

1.7.2

• Tested with WordPress 3.1

1.7.1

• Tested with WordPress 3.0

1.7

• Added template tag which can be used in themes for positioning the message in any location.

1.6

• Added option to exclude welcome message from Pages. Default is to show on both Posts and Pages.
• No “welcome back” message by default.

1.5

• Added “welcome back” message for return visitors.
• Welcome message is shown only once on pages with multiple posts.
• Added nonces for improved security.
• Improved security against XSS attacks.

1.0

• Initial release.