Look to the Stars ...

I must say at the start - I'm not a believer in horoscopes, astrology, and all that kind of flaky stuff. If you believe it that's fine with me - please don't let my comments offend your ridiculous beliefs :^) My ideas on this page relate to having some creative fun - at the expense of not taking horoscopes too seriously. If you do take them seriously, well you might still be able to adapt some of these ideas for use on a "real" horoscope website.

One of the things that is attractive to me about creating a horoscope website is that it is the kind of site that can get return visitors. You have the opportunity to develop a relationship with your visitors. One idea is for you to invite them to submit their horoscope-believer stories. Here's an example I've made up :

"I never used to believe in horoscopes. I would read them for entertainment only - that is until the fateful day I read that I should beware of websites that provide free website ideas. I foolishly disregarded that advice and I live to deeply regret it. Like a fool I went to DesignStop.Com and saw a free website idea that has disrupted my life. I can't stop thinking about how great the idea is. Thinking about it consumes my every waking moment and I'm so excited about it that I can't sleep. Damn that DesignStop.Com! If only I had followed my horoscope..."

You can have comments emailed to you. Any that you like can be put up on your site. Or you can use a guestbook script and have all submissions posted automatically - the ones you like as well as those you don't.

As for the main guts of your site you can have links to all the various astrological signs. Each would link provide a horoscope for individuals of that sign. To make it easier on yourself you could use a script to display a random "horoscope" each time someone visits the page. i.e. You'd write a whole bunch of them ahead of time - the more you do upfront the less you'd have to maintain the site and the less likely your visitor will see the same horoscope twice. If you are more serious about presenting horoscopes "properly" you could have a script that displays particular scripts by the date rather than randomly. Freeware scripts that do these sorts of things are available.

When it comes to what kinds of horoscopes you should write, it seems to me you have options as to what direction you take with them. Here are some basic approaches I've thought about :

Serious : "Opportunities will abound but they will not be obvious. Keep your eyes open for them and you will find them." This kind of horoscope might make people take your site seriously. Fools!

Play with their minds : "It is a good idea to watch your back for the next 14 days. Your enemies should not be underestimated. Trust nobody but me." Try to take control of your visitors lives. Make them dependent on you for advice and emotional support.

New age: "Hold a crystal to your forehead and concentrate on its energy before making the the life-altering decision that faces you. You will make the correct decision even if it doesn't seem like it." Make sure each of your horoscopes mention at least one new-age preoccupation : crystals, goddesses, energy, life-force, angels, heaven, or spirits.

Have silly fun : "Follow these instructions carefully: take a piece of raw meat to the bank; rent a safety deposit box to store the meat; go back to the bank every few days and say to the tellers "what's that stink?"; laugh all the way home because even if they figure out the source of the smell - they aren't allowed to open the box!". Of course to have fun you don't really have to incite your visitors to do bad things . Instead you can suggest silly things like they wear their shirts inside-out to school/work or that they stick out their tongues at strangers ( note that I don't consider that a bad thing unless someone does it to me ).

Whatever approach you take I think you should try to be as consistent as possible. Being consistent will be much more effective than mixing styles.

Here's another ~~devious~~ great idea! : Make your visitors submit a form that asks them all kinds of questions before they get their horoscope. They'll think the questions are required to customize their particular horoscope according to their "stars" or some other hogwash. Of course you'll just ignore the submitted data! Your goal should always be to satisfy the visitor - if filling in a form makes them "trust" the horoscope more, you are doing them a service. They want to believe.

If you did that idea with the form and your site gets alot of traffic, you could make money from your site by selling targeted advertising. The more you know about your visitors the better the rates you can get for your advertising. Ask them on the form what major purchases they plan to make - a banner for an appropriate product can be unobtrusively inserted. Isn't the internet amazing! Collect little bits of info from them over time, keeping track of it with cookies and a database, then customize the pages with "server-side includes" that reinsert the data where you want it. Your visitors will believe you are psychic when they start seeing the personalized pages! They will have forgotten that they told you their favorite color on a form one month before.

Well if this page has you thinking about the possibilities - Great - that's why I do this. On the other hand, if you think this horoscope stuff really bites then I really hope you'll give me another chance and check out the rest of the varied DesignStop.Com ideas. Trust your stars - you'll find something that enthuses you.

PS. If you create some kind of horoscope page after seeing this I'd really appreciate it if you'd . It validates the time I take doing this stuff to know someone is able to take the ideas and create something of their own.