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.)

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

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Aminka on November 2, 2011 at 1:07 pm said:

Great idea, but I’d like something that works as a modal window/overlay/lightbox and not put on every page…any suggestions??

Reply ↓
Ed on November 14, 2011 at 9:42 am said:

I like WWSGD a lot. Thanks
I’m validating my code at validator.w3.org and am getting this warning:
Line 509, Column 20: character “<" is the first character of a delimiter but occurred as data
if ( count <= 5 ) {

That code is in the following WWSGD-related lines:
else {
count = parseInt(jQuery.cookie('wwsgd_visits'), 10) + 1;
}
jQuery.cookie('wwsgd_visits', count, { expires: 365, path: "/" });
if ( count <= 5 ) {
jQuery(".wwsgd").show();
}
–
Is there a coding change that needs to be made? If so, where would I make the edit?
Thanks, Ed

Reply ↓
Patina Marketing on November 21, 2011 at 5:37 pm said:

Ed,

Anyway to get this feature on selected pages only? Its appearing all over my site and I had to remove it. I’d like it only to appear on certain pages. Also, if I decide to use it again I need to change the URL for the feed. Can you tell me how to do this? Right now it says home then /feed and I use Feedburner.

Thanks!

Reply ↓
- Patina Marketing on November 21, 2011 at 5:39 pm said:
  
  Richard,
  
  I addressed the previous post to the last person who commented. Sorry about that!
  
  Reply ↓
Lawrey Smashnuk on November 21, 2011 at 6:38 pm said:

I like the idea of this plug-in and use it but an editor caught a missing word for returning visitors: (copied from my site) note “here” is missing:

Since you have been before you might want to subscribe to my mailing list so we can keep in touch. Thanks for visiting!

I looked for it in the html editor but could not determine where to add the missing “here”? Please advise, thanks, Lawrey

Reply ↓
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Mike on November 23, 2011 at 6:59 am said:

There are no settings in the plugin just activate/deactivate and edit . I can not change the lifespan. I want to keep it on the page always but now it is gone.

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- Richard K Miller on November 23, 2011 at 11:51 am said:
  
  Sounds like you’re in the Plugin area instead of the Settings area. Under Settings you should find a WWSGD page.
  
  Reply ↓
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Ryan on December 23, 2011 at 9:25 pm said:

Hey Richard, great plugin. I just added it into my site and although it appears, I’m getting an error message in the settings section:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function esc_textarea() in /home/ryan/public_html/wp-content/plugins/what-would-seth-godin-do/what_would_seth_godin_do.php on line 81

thoughts?

Reply ↓
- Richard K Miller on December 24, 2011 at 1:42 pm said:
  
  Hi Ryan, it sounds like you’re using a version of WordPress older than 3.1. Upgrading WordPress should fix this.
  
  Reply ↓
  - Ryan on December 25, 2011 at 11:31 am said:
    
    Thank you Richard!
    
    Reply ↓
Pedro on January 1, 2012 at 3:53 pm said:

Hi Richard,

how can I used it with WordPress 3.3? It doesn´t work on my blog. Happy New Year.
Pedro

Reply ↓
- Richard K Miller on January 3, 2012 at 9:13 pm said:
  
  Hi Pedro, did the plugin work previously before you upgraded? Does it work with a different theme?
  
  Reply ↓
  - Pedro on January 4, 2012 at 1:24 am said:
    
    Hi Richard, I don´t use it before. I use the arras theme. Will try it with another theme. I see that there is no an upgradr for WP 3.3.1… Thanks
    
    Reply ↓
Geoffrey Gordon on January 18, 2012 at 11:32 pm said:

A client of mine is trying to get this plugin on her website http://thetailormadelife.com, it is the default twentyten theme. and it set to appear on posts. no luck on appearing. The website is running on wordpress3.3 latest version.

Do you think it is conflicting with other plugins?

Reply ↓
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Raven Howard on April 28, 2012 at 5:49 am said:

Hey Richard, I love the WWSGD plugin. THANK YOU! Can you help me with one thing I want to do differently? I’d like the WWSGD box to only show below a full post entry and not on my /blog (teaser entries) page. Can that be done? Thanks for your time/help!

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Howard on April 29, 2012 at 10:05 pm said:

Hi Richard, love the concept of the plugin, but I can not get it to show up on my site? I have two messages for new visitors and return visitors, but neither show up? Is here the right place to post support questions? Should it work on any theme? Is there a trouble-shooting process to follow? I tried resetting, but still didn’t work. WP 3.3.1 using the Magazinum theme from WPZoom. Thanks.

Reply ↓
- Richard K Miller on April 30, 2012 at 11:21 am said:
  
  Hi Howard, does it work with the default theme or any other themes?
  
  Reply ↓
  - Howard on April 30, 2012 at 5:56 pm said:
    
    I haven’t check that. I ended up adding the following code to the single.php file just below the author meta:
    
    Then added some css to style the div. Works like a treat and I can now style it as I wish! Thanks.
    
    Reply ↓
    - Howard on April 30, 2012 at 5:59 pm said:
      
      Whoops, it stripped the code… try again
      
      Reply ↓
Howard on April 30, 2012 at 6:00 pm said:

How do I add code to a comment?!

“”

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khaled on May 5, 2012 at 6:09 am said:

very nive idea , thanks for this plugin

Reply ↓
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987 thoughts on “WordPress plugin: What Would Seth Godin Do”

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