We've taken time out over the last couple of days to get our Guest Welcome message online (go check it out ). Do you personalise the welcome message guests see when hitting your site?
I'm now bored with my guest message and will get around to styling that this weekend. I have a few ideas what I'm wanting to do but nothing finalised as yet. That said, I have a custom guest message but that'll be changing shortly.
I think theyre important, I think I notice a decrease in registrations when there isnt one there. I like AdminExtra's, it looks like it has been updated since the other day too.
Considering MyBB doesn't have a guest welcome message by default, the one on RCTgo is very customized. And actually most of the 'benefits' pertain to things that you can do on the website with an account, not the forums... But considering the website is where the bulk of RCTgo's traffic goes, that's perfectly fine, I think. In general, I definitely think a customized welcome message mentioning the benefits of joining your specific community is the only kind of welcome message you should have - anything that's the generic default (like being able to send private messages) might as well just not be there. It's all about making your community stand out to the visitor.
I use a portal software to enable them on my SMF powered forums, I use the noticed or the builtin one on my VB forums. I customize them myself and explain what the forum is about and what they are missing out on as a guest.
