WordPress plugin: 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. For WordPress users it reduces the “work at first” to almost nothing. Installation is simple:

Download the WWSGD WordPress plugin and unzip it.
Copy the what-would-seth_godin-do folder to your WordPress plugins folder.
Activate the plugin in the Plugins panel.
Customize settings in the Settings panel.

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. Your visitor must have cookies enabled.

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!

DOWNLOAD the What Would Seth Godin Do WordPress plugin

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

FOR OTHER PLATFORMS:
(I have not tested these.)

972 thoughts on “WordPress plugin: What Would Seth Godin Do”

Pingback: Soar the Web :: Blogs :: Picking the Right Wordpress Plugins
Pingback: Pro-Blogger Project: Recommended Plugins | Internet Home Businesses
Pingback: Marc Delphine Should Take Advantage of Faux Pas.
Pingback: thirteen awesome word press plugins - Gurls Asylum
Pingback: 40 Incredibly Useful Web Design Tools You Should Use Daily « HUE Designer
Pingback: 130 WordPress Plugins You Could Ever Need: « HUE Designer
Cure-Anxiety-Disorders.com on March 23, 2010 at 1:40 pm said:

Is there a way to turn off the code on one page?

Thank You.

Jim Dahleen

Reply ↓
Pingback: Chica SEO – Ideas de Negocios y SEO » Blog Archive » Prepara tu blog para el éxito
Adal Design on March 27, 2010 at 5:32 pm said:

Brilliant idea!

Reply ↓
Pingback: Prepare o seu blog para o sucesso, antes de fazer dinheiro! | Faz Dinheiro Online
Pingback: Soar the Web :: Blogs :: Which Wordpress plugins should I use?
Pingback: Danke Hannes – Neuer Feed-Banner | DimidoBlog
Pingback: Loft 75
William on April 5, 2010 at 5:16 pm said:

Is it possible for one to alter the code to include more messages? For example: 1 message when a user visits 5 times, another with 10 times, another with 100 times and so on?

Reply ↓
Pingback: Prepara tu blog para el éxito | Como Hacer Dinero
Brian on April 10, 2010 at 1:16 am said:

Hi, I saw this question a couple of times now but with no reply. Is it possible to dissable the box from showing on just a single page? I would like to keep it up on all of my posts and pages except my contact page. I was looking into adding a custom word press field to disable similar to adding the custom field name=”tweetmeme” value=”false” to turn that plugin off on individual pages but to no avail with wwsgd.

Thank you in advance for any help.

Reply ↓
Miklas Njor on April 13, 2010 at 12:59 am said:

Regarding having it show up on selected pages you might want to read up on “Conditional Tags”: http://codex.wordpress.org/Conditional_Tags

There is also a plugin that will let you set when a widget is to be shown.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/slayers-custom-widgets/

Reply ↓
Richard K Miller on April 13, 2010 at 7:18 pm said:

@Brian, I actually like this approach a lot. It seems like that would be pretty doable, yet clean and simple. Thanks for the note.

Reply ↓
Der Poker Profi on April 19, 2010 at 9:39 am said:

Richard, your plugin is really great. I’m using it on my website without any problems.
One thing I noted is that unfortunately Google often takes the text from the WWSGD notification as a snippet in the SERPs. This is not really great news, as the first thing the reader gets to know about my site in Google is something like “Thank you for visiting. Please subscribe to our newsletter…”

Would it be possible to add an option to WWSGD which would disable showing the message on the very first visit? This would remove the problem, and any visitor looking at more than one page would still get to see the message…

Reply ↓
Richard K Miller on April 19, 2010 at 11:21 pm said:

@Miklas, thanks for the tip.

@William, at the moment there are not multiple tiers, but that is indeed an interesting idea.

@Jim, there’s currently no way to exclude the plugin on specific pages, but I daresay that is the most request feature. Coming soon.

@Doc, does the plugin work correctly with other themes?

Reply ↓
scott on April 25, 2010 at 4:50 pm said:

As a blog reader, I find these kind of messages really annoying.
When I see these messages, I will actually stop from subscribing to the RSS, simply as I feel I am getting pressured into it.

Reply ↓
Pingback: WordPress Plugins Part 2 « MoeMir
Richard K Miller on April 26, 2010 at 11:33 am said:

@Der Poker Profi: I like that approach to preventing the WWSGD message from appearing in Google’s cache. Good idea.

Reply ↓
Der Poker Profi on April 26, 2010 at 1:16 pm said:

Thank you Richard for your answer.
Are you still updating your great plugin so that there is any chance that this feature might be added?
Or do you think I could do this by modifying the php-file? (I have almost no programming background)

Reply ↓
Der Poker Profi on April 26, 2010 at 1:57 pm said:

Richard – I have found an easy work-around for my suggestion. This will only work when you don’t use the “message to returning visitors”. I simply added the query marked with ***** to your code (near the bottom of the file):

function wwsgd_get_the_message()
{
global $wwsgd_visits, $wwsgd_settings;

********************

if ($wwsgd_visits <= 1 == $wwsgd_settings['repetition'])
{
return $wwsgd_settings['return_visitor_message'];
}
else

********************

if ($wwsgd_visits <= $wwsgd_settings['repetition'] || 0 == $wwsgd_settings['repetition'])
{
return $wwsgd_settings['new_visitor_message'];
}
else
{
return $wwsgd_settings['return_visitor_message'];
}
}

Reply ↓
Pingback: The WWSGD Wordpress plugin
Pingback: Plug-in, Why not? | Motivational Quotes, Inspiring Stories, Blog Tips and Health Link
Pingback: Ultranex | Mijn favoriete Wordpress plugins
Karl on May 4, 2010 at 7:12 am said:

Hi Richard I wonder if you could help me?

I’ve installed your wwsgd plugin, unfortunately it displays on all pages no matter what settings I choose with the message “you’ve visited a few times and I would appreciate your thoughts on this post, why not comment?”.

This would be great, however I never wrote this message, I left it blank in the options page!! It appears after 4 visits (refreshes). I’ve tried resetting, no good, cleared cache, uninstalled, wiped line form sql database, no idea where it is coming from. If I try to reinstall it posts both the welcome message and the leave a comment message making a real mess!
Any help at this stage would be gladly appreciated….

Reply ↓
Pingback: Wordpress Wednesday – Favorite Plugins List | The Blue Jeans VA
Johan on May 8, 2010 at 1:20 am said:

Thanks, just added this feature to my website.

Reply ↓
Pingback: My Favorite Plug-Ins for WordPress | Life Without Pink...
Richard K Miller on May 18, 2010 at 6:11 pm said:

@Karl: Are you still seeing this occur? Does it occur if you install the plugin on any of your other blogs or websites?

Reply ↓
Pingback: Top 20 Plugins for WordPress | Curtez Riggs dot com
Pingback: How Bloggers Can Make 4 Figures Per Month! | John Yeo’s Blogging for Profits Work At Home Blog
Pingback: Creative Uses For RSS Referrer Tracking By Bloggers? | Search Engine Journal
Pingback: One Easy Way to Increase Your Site’s Stickiness | Blogging with Amy
Rene Nekuda on June 13, 2010 at 5:19 am said:

This is awsome plugin – I’m using it on my website http://renenekuda.cz/

Thanks a lot!

Reply ↓
Pingback: The BIG List of Blog Promotion Plugins for Wordpress
Pingback: 10+ great Wordpress Plugins
Pingback: My Top 10 Profitable Wordpress Plugins | TyroneShum dot com
Pingback: Wordpress插件汇总 - popphp
Pingback: Prepara tu blog para el exito | Mujeres Emprendedoras
Pingback: Sewing Business Blog » Top Ten Favorite Wordpress Plugins
TC Nielson on June 24, 2010 at 10:50 am said:

I’m having just the opposite problem that some are having. The Box shows up on the main index page, but not on the individual posts. I have been fighting with this for 2 days. When I add the template tag to the posts, all I get is a big empty box. I am using the Thesis theme.

Any ideas?

Reply ↓
- Richard K Miller on August 11, 2010 at 7:56 pm said:
  
  If you temporarily switch to a different theme, does it work okay? This might help us narrow down the issue.
  
  Reply ↓
Pingback: 130 WordPress Plugins You Could Ever Need: The Best Of: Part 2
Dee on July 5, 2010 at 11:44 pm said:

As it only works five times, a simple trick I used is to good your site and view the cache to see the plugin in action . Try it!

Reply ↓
Dee on July 5, 2010 at 11:44 pm said:

I meant google in comment above.

Reply ↓
Pingback: How To Optimize with Wordpress Plugins!
Dany S. on July 14, 2010 at 12:19 am said:

Hi Richard.
I liked the idea of the plugin and have installed it.
I wanted it to show in every post but not on the other pages.
I have defined the home page as a landing page for an optin, and the blog posts I have defined to be shown on a blog page.
I have defined in the plugin setup that the iframe will show only on posts.
I find it though, only on the blog page, but not in each individual post.
How can I define it to appear in each post, except for doing what I did?
Thanks for your help

Reply ↓

972 thoughts on “WordPress plugin: What Would Seth Godin Do”

Leave a Reply Cancel reply