For believers, astrology is a science.
It is the careful study of celestial objects – of their positions and movements- to predict earthly events.
People consult astrologers for matters concerning life changing events. And for those looking for instant gratification, turn the pages of a newspaper or magazine to the ‘Daily Horoscope’ section.
Just like the ‘Daily Horoscope’ section, interested readers have come to expect certain aspects from an astrology magazine or website. And if you’re thinking (or are in the process) of building an astrology website yourself, you need to be aware of these features.
Based on our research, below is a list of 5 must have features you should provide, on your astrology, news or magazine website on WordPress:
#1 Quick Access Widget
Even if you have a dedicated horoscope section on your website, a quick link to that section in your sidebar or footer can surely help. But not as a button; what could definitely be better would be an excerpt of the horoscope, or quick links to individual zodiac forecasts available right in the sidebar. This is a ‘Quick Access Widget’.
Because of the quick summary it provides, visitors get instant gratification.
Look for a horoscope or astrology plugin that has an in built widget option. What you’ll need to do is then add this widget in a sidebar or footer (as appropriate). If the plugin you are using does not have a ‘Quick Access’ or ‘Quick Link’ widget, you could seriously give a thought to building one.
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#2 Bulk Upload
Any and every horoscope or astrology plugin has the option to add content for each zodiac sign manually. But can you imagine uploading this content for each sign (that’s 12 by the way) on a daily basis?! It can be a quite headache, don’t you think?! Good astrology plugins- not necessarily the most expensive, but the most functional- definitely provide an option to bulk upload horoscope content. And this functionality is just the medicine to resolve your manual upload woes.
With a bulk upload option, you can upload a CSV file or spreadsheet which contains horoscopes for all zodiac signs for different days, weeks or years in one go, saving you the effort of having to enter each value separately.
This ‘Bulk Upload’ feature is not just a must-have, it’s a can’t do without!
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#3 Social Sharing
Whether you are a news, sports, business or pure astrology website, you can’t ignore social media.
According to The Telegraph, an average person has five social media accounts and spends around an hour and 40 minutes browsing these networks daily.
Connecting to a user’s social media profile, can be the easiest way to keep them engaged. And it’s not just an option for users to login to your website using their social media profiles, you could extend this by including an option for users to ‘Like’ your website, or an option which allows them to ‘Share’ any content on their social profiles.
You could look for an astrology plugin that provides a sharing option on popular social networking websites, like Facebook.
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#4 Subscription Option
An email subscription option is certainly a great feature to have. With an email subscription option your users can subscribe to horoscope updates via email.
With email marketing still being a top marketing technique and a great source of analytics data, your astrology plugin can either provide a ‘subscribe via email’ option, or can provide an option that helps you tie up with an email marketing service.
Email marketing can provide you a large pool of users; and provide your users the convenience of viewing updates right in their inbox (instead of navigating to your website).
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#5 Featured Forecast
A featured forecast section can be used to display special content, such as a ‘If Today is Your Birthday’ section, or a special tip or hint which can be displayed on certain days.
This is a popular section on an astrology website and does appeal to readers.
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Apart from these features based on your requirement, you could look for other options such as a scraping option which can help you pull content from other websites and display it as a widget on your site, or an option to add categories to content, which can help users filter sections under their horoscope such as a career or relationship section.
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But what if available WordPress Plugins don’t meet my needs?
Now, if there isn’t a readily available plugin that meets your needs, you need to opt for a custom solution. Most of you might worry about the cost involved when heading for a custom solution. But there is an advantage, with a custom solution you can add the needed features, and eliminate unnecessary overheads. And by choosing an available platform that’s extendable, you can keep customization costs low 🙂
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For your astrology website, what are the features you look out for? Let us know, in the comment section below!!
2 Responses
Hi Rechal,
i would be looking forward for adding Astrology section and Social media connect. please can you get in touch with me
Hi Vivek/Rechal, Thanks for detailing the 5 must have features for an astrology, news or magazine website on WordPress above. Astrologyyard is a good and free to install plugin; sun signs monthly horoscopes.