I’m happy to share a guest post from my friend Jonathan Bird, Managing Director of UK dating site Singles Warehouse. (If anyone knows the bad habits online daters have, it’s this guy!) Read on for tips about making your dating profile work for you. (Yes, even while you sleep.)
Online Dating, something that used to be seen as taboo, has now surged to incredible heights of popularity and is the method of choice for finding love around the world. Today there are thousands upon thousands of profiles to look through, and so many of them look the same.
If you want your profile to get attention you need to figure out how to stand out from the crowd. Here are some tips:
Use your username to grab attention: The first thing you do when creating your profile is to come up with a username. You want something that grabs people’s attention, something that shows your playful side and a bit of your personality at the same time. While something like JaneSmith0543 is functional, it doesn’t really stand out and may be scrolled past. Think of what traits say something about you, and incorporate them into your handle. (For instance, AdventurousNerd is a little more revealing, don’t you think?)
Hook people in with your headline: Your username has gotten someone’s attention and now they’ve clicked your profile, but you need to hook them in… This may be a quote from your favorite film or book, or it may be the first half of a sentence… Either way, you want something that will leave them guessing and wanting to find out more.
Put more thought into your profile: Something that you see ALL THE TIME on people’s online dating profiles is a list of adjectives that describe themselves or a list of things they like to do on a Sunday afternoon. Not only is it boring, it doesn’t tell you much about the person you’re viewing. How many times have you read “Love long walks on the beach, curling up with wine and Netflix, and laughing a lot…” Try instead to take some time and write a snapshot of an important moment of your life. For example, you could describe a turning point for you, an event that shows a small victory or maybe a personal growth in insight or wisdom. This can be either funny or serious, it’s completely up to you. The point is, potential dates have a better idea of who you are when you are more specific.
Show your passions: You have two avenues to go down when you’re crafting your profile: 1. You can be very broad with your preferences to try and attract as many people as possible, or 2. You can be hyper specific and attract the most aligned partner you can. While in the early days of online dating being broad may have been a winning strategy, with so many people now using online dating, being very specific can save you time and energy by only attracting high quality matches.
Include the best photos: A very unfortunate common practice is to include potentially misleading photos in your profile that may portray a younger/more attractive/happier version of you. While you obviously want to look your best and market yourself well, you don’t want to make your potential matches feel duped the first time you meet them. Keep your photos recent, fun, and showing your favorite hobbies to give a visual glimpse into your life, and you will do well.
Say what you aren’t looking for: While this can come across as negative to some people, you aren’t online to please everyone; you’re after the right match, for you. So if you have height requirements, no tolerance for homophobia or any other preferences that are deal breakers for you, let people know what they are and filter out undesirable matches.
Following these tips will not only improve your profile and increase your chances to find a match online, it will also do a lot of the work for you and insure that you’re only getting the highest quality matches.
About Singles Warehouse
Singles Warehouse is one of the largest singles online dating sites in the UK with over 2 million registered members. The service also offers an online dating blog covering all the important questions like What to do if you’ve slept with him too soon, 20 Sex positions you have to try and How to deal with relationship uncertainty.
About Kelly Seal
Kelly is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, CA. She blogs about dating, relationships, personal growth and what "healthy living" means to her. You can follow her on Google+, Twitter @kellyseal or through her website www.kellyseal.com.
I’ve been thinking of ways to help a friend make his dating profile better, but I’ve never really dated online before so I wasn’t sure where to start. I thought all of these were really great ideas though! It makes a lot of sense that you’d want to talk about what your passions are, and if you’re straightforward about what you aren’t looking for people who contact you are going to know what you’re about easier. I’m definitely going to pass this onto my friend, and I’m excited to see how it helps. Thanks for sharing!