Top 10 Tips To Creating a Winning Internet Dating Profile

Marriage Minded Dating Coach’s Expert Top 10 Tips To Create a Winning Online Dating Profile

1.       Do Prepare. So many singles get the idea to join the online dating world and want to just go ahead and pop their internet dating profile online in the next 15 minutes.  However, many of the singles who use online dating are sophisticate users.  They are using Online Dating to be efficient, save time, and meet targeted singles.  They don’t want to waste their time.  If your profile is incomplete, they will not make the effort to make it up to you and draw you out.  By the time your online dating profile is posted, they expect your profile to be 100% ready for flirting, conversation, and arranging to meet.

2.       Do Ask Yourself – What Do I Want? There are over 5 million singles with internet dating profiles.  Even about 7 million more when you count the broader perspective of Social Networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Hi5.  So, of those 5 million plus singles, who are you looking for?  What sort of singles relationship are you looking for?  Are you a Goth Guy with tats and piercings?  Ms. Preppie, clean cut, summers in Maine?  Or Summers in The Hamptons?  What are you wanting from among those several million?

3.       Do Ask Yourself – What Do I NOT Want? Now that you are facing 7 million singles at the 1 or 2 internet dating sites where you have selected to post your online dating site profile, which of those singles are absolutely not a fit for you?  Do singles of a certain height not fit?  Are you a 3” hi heel donning lady whose height out of the shower is 5’8”?  Are a fitness fan who hikes every Saturday afternoon who is looking to share you active love of the great outdoors?  What about your spiritual practice or religion?  Spiritual not religious.  Christian attends services monthly.  Or Catholic for the High Holy Days only.  What are you and what are you NOT?  Many singles focus on what they want and neglect contemplating and pondering, aka, chewing on what do you NOT want?  Sober? Social Drinker? Non-Smoking?  Think about it.  You will want to express it lightly in your profile.

4.       Do Keep It Positive. Many dating experts like myself recommend to singles that you keep your online dating profile upbeat and positive.  The trouble is, many singles have not studied copywriting, psychology, Mind Dynamics, and Hypnosis, so they read that statement, and have one understanding.  And then in the practice and actuality, they don’t manage to do that.  Make positive statements in your profile.  Refrain from whining, negative, complaining statements.  Single Men and Single Gals who talk about what they have not enjoyed in online dating turn off those who would have been attracted and use phrases that focus on attracting the very opposite of those singles they desire to date.

5.       Do Avoid the Generic. Avoid writing your online dating profile from the perspective of the generic umbrella label of your hobbies.  As a single, you may be wondering, “April, but why not?  What’s wrong with just listing my hobbies and activities?  There are two problems with this.  First:  The Brain Can’t Picture It.  When you just cited that “Walking” or “Hiking” is one of your hobbies, your Prospective Date just strolls right on by because the text of your dating profile did nothing to grab their brain.  Second:  The Internet is continually changing.  That have been enough to register on their attention a few years ago in cyberspace.  However, the internet and online dating keep changing.  Yahoo! Personals was the source of a number of marriages where I have interviewed the now-married couples.  Yahoo! Personals is now GONE from the internet.  Tactics which online dating desiring singles used 12 month ago can be over used, outdated, and worn out by now.  Best to develop your own custom dating strategy and implement current tactics to achieve dating success.

6.       Do Be Specific. For goodness sake’s, don’t just cite you like “HIKING” for a weekend potential shared activity or interesting hobby without also citing for the sake of your Prospective Date 1-3 hiking locations where you enjoy hiking.  What level of hiking do you pursue on a regular basis?  Also do address how often you pursue hiking?  Or did you just include hiking in your dating profile as a way to show up in the search results of other singles?  One of the popular hobbies to cite is “Likes Dancing.”  Well there are well over 51 kinds of dancing.  Is there something in particular which you enjoy?  Are you surprisingly into both break dancing as well as classical style Viennese Waltz?  Do you prefer Argentine Tango over Ballroom Tango?  Is your idea of dancing the Polka, square dancing, or Country Western Line dancing?  See what I mean?  So yes, do be specific.  It will help your Prospective Date out to envision the possibilities.

7.       Do Be Engaging. In many dating profiles and the initial content emails of singles approaching another the Prospect Date makes the social blunder of make their writing all about themselves.  In the late 1990s some of the folks starting to write and give advice to singles in the cyberdating sphere stated to recommend to be efficient in your communication.  In fact, for a time there, a number of the dating sites would let you save text, like your generic opening missive, to use again and repeatedly.  Well, the problem is, when you do that, trust me, your note comes across as pre-fabricated, generic and corporate when what you want to do is to be enticing, engaging, and starting a little romance.  So in your profile, do write a sentence or two about the sort of Prospective Date you are looking for.  What do you want to share with them in your life?  Someone who will laugh at your jokes or be the life of the party themselves?  Indeed, feel free to interweave 1, 2, or 3 questions into the few paragraphs of your internet dating profile.  You will be subtly leveraging the brain’s natural tendency to close the open loop and answer the open question.  When your Prospective Date answers your question mentally, you increase the likelihood that they will then respond to you with an opening email.  And is that what you were looking for?

8.       Do Avoid the Cliché. Too many single men cite that they want a woman who can look great and feel comfortable in both a ball gown and a pair of jeans.  Well, let’s be real here, shall we?  Honey, when was the last time you invited and escorted a lady to an Opening Night Opera Gala event which served dinner at or after 8 pm?  Unless that is the case, most of your life does not warrant or require she wear a Formal Ball Gown.  Most of our lives require maybe something fun and elegant in more of an off the rack semi formal wear mode, don’t you find?  And ladies, let’s not play role reversal on the guys, ok?  How often DO you attend a semi-formal occasion, really, requiring him to wear his own evening jacket aka tux?  If that’s the case, just be delighted he knows how to tie a tie and wear a starched shirt and go with the flow.  Let him be him.

9.       Do Be Genuine.  Be You. In addition to avoiding the generic and the cliché, do be you.  Too many singles are trying to cast a wide net, a super wide net, and get plenty of fish into their Prospective Date pool to consider.  And yet, they have not considered what would match and complement them well.  They might notice that a lot of the other singles are citing certain hobbies, activities, or interests and feel they must, too.  Only to go on that all important first meeting Date Zero and have their date discover that they have never been hand gliding and have no interest in it.  And that was the very item which drew the Prospective Date to them.  Better not to include what you think is popular but not truly reflective of you then to attract Prospective Dates aren’t drawn to your special uniqueness.  Be yourself, and project your best self to attract lasting love online.

10.   Do Include Great Photos of YOU! I’m not talking about the first few hours of a published profile when maybe you are still uploading profile photographs and when your profile essay text and photographs are all getting approved.  I’m talking about, you are fully launched online and yet your internet dating profile either has no photos or you, even worse, they are guilty of one of the 10 Internet Dating Profile Photo Blunders.  (Don’t make me come out there with the velvet covered brick, ok?)  People who are true public figures and near-celebrities have gotten around this by citing some nice statement in their profile about their position and a promise that once you reply to their message, they will send you to their executive biography photograph or newsmax photo images.  Short of that, get a great photograph!  Get 3!

Have fun and Happy Dating and Relationships!

April Braswell