Ways of attracting members to an online dating website

In recent years, the concept of online dating websites has been well received and popularized, hand in hand with the fast moving modern lifestyle. I bet, many of you out there already own your small online dating websites and are doing pretty well. Some are probably earning more than expected! However, not all are so lucky and must be wondering why your website isn’t getting many hits. And even if you are getting adequate hits, you must be pondering, why people aren’t signing up. Today, I am going to discuss the importance/benefits and the know-how of attracting more members to your dating website.

Okay, you have published your dating website with a resolute intention to bring people together, and in the process you also intend to earn a considerable amount of money. My advice is, never deviate from your 2nd objective?. Studies reveal that 1 out of every 16 internet users in Europe alone pay for dating services each year. By the year 2011, online expenditure on dating is estimated to reach an incredible total of 549 million Euros (US$742 million). Considering all these numbers as a motivator, you need to keep determined on your goal, even if your website isn’t that popular yet. With just a few marketing ticks and tactics, you will be having more members to your website in no time:

• Aim and choose the state/region you want your website to operate in. In other words, choose a local target market. Opting for an international dating database doesn’t pay off all the time as members often face an array of difficulties in properly communicating with one another. And hey, don’t feel unenthusiastic of starting small. One day, you will make it big for sure. Have the full confidence.

• Affiliation is the key. More you affiliate, more traffic, you will get. Team up with other websites to bring in more prospective members to your dating website. Promote your website further by providing bundled facilities agreed upon by other websites and affiliates. This method is often very effective and it too brings in traffic.

• Provide limited access – force your visitors to sign up before allowing them any access to your website. This should help to build a substantial member database. This will also help your website in the long run because if people come across a website with no members, they aren’t going to register and create a profile.

• Try your best to get the website listed on every popular dating directory. There are numerous dating directories out there on the web and they manage to bring in a heavy amount of traffic.

• Seek out other dating and social networking websites which are very popular and have a large member database. Try to have numerous accounts in these websites; especially the ones that allow free signups to promote your own dating website further via personal messages to the members.

• Search Engine Optimization: Include unique or common key words in your website e.g. easy dating, date singles etc. so that whenever anyone searches for something similar to words found on your website, your dating website will be listed in the search results.

• Have a company visiting/business card mentioning web address of your dating site. Give it around, wherever you go. Let word in on your friends and family about your dating website. This will greatly help in promoting the website.

• Always try to incline your website’s motives towards singles and swingers from various social dating and networking websites. Another thing that you must realize is that, studies have shown that women are less likely to use or respond to online dating websites. Remember, in most cases, men are browsing dating sites in order to find women. Take it up as a challenge and try to get more attractive women to sign up on your website. You will be surprised by the number of hits at your site.

Remember to be patient and hopeful. Dating websites are considered to be gradual growers, and the success of the website principally depends on its popularity and comprehensive member database.
Best of Luck!!

Myth #1: Build it and they will come

Traffic is everything. As thousands of webmasters have already learned, you can have a catchy domain name and an impeccably designed website already on the web. You can even have it indexed by the search engines. However, even after all that, a website may only get a handful of visitors a day. After a few weeks of launching a website, you may catch up to the fact that getting people to your site takes a lot more hard work than you expected. It will take many different approaches to make your website known, and you’ll have to pull all the stops: list your website in the major directories, have it crawled by the search engines, create a signature file for your emails, publish a free newsletter, exchange links, stamp your domain name in your business cards, stationary, and promotional material, advertise in traditional media, etc. But above all, it will take time, sometimes months or even years, before you’re able to get significant traffic to your website, so prepare to be patient and don’t give up.

Myth #2: We guarantee top placement with the search engines

When it comes to search engines, nobody can guarantee anything. The task of search engine optimization is a lot like trying to predict the stock market. Just as no stockbroker can guarantee you a 100% return on your money (if he can, how come he still has to work?), no search engine optimization “expert” can guarantee you a top placement. Maybe he can position your website in a top spot for keywords that nobody uses, but that wouldn’t be of any help, would it? All you can do to try to score big with the search engines is to follow some basic guidelines, like putting your preferred keywords in your page title, repeat them often in your web page copy, and creating a site map link near the top of the page so that the search engine can crawl all your pages. Other than basic things like that, the only other strategy that can significantly improve your ranking is to get a lot of links to your site from authoritative pages related to your topic. That means more hard and time-consuming work, but you can only take out what you put in, don’t you? So, if you want good results, stop listening to the hype-meisters and get to work.

Myth #3: Make money while you sleep

How many times have you heard this?: “sign up for these affiliate programs and your website will turn into a lean, mean, cash machine: you’ll be making money in your pajamas”. Yeah, right. First of all, affiliate commissions are usually so small that the average affiliate will only rake in ten or twenty bucks a month. After all, what makes you think that people who see the same links in thousands of other pages are going to decide to make a purchase from your site? The only way to make significant money is with a fairly unique product that not a lot of sites sell. You may need to invest time and money to research your target market, find and get the rights to distribute a profitable product, and then work hard to promote it. If you just want to run a couple of affiliate links at your site, that’s OK, but don’t quit your day job just yet.

Myth #4: Build an opt-in mailing list and become rich

For years, we have heard web marketing gurus tell us that we just have to publish a free ezine or newsletter, collect our visitors’ emails and laugh all the way to the bank. This probably originated years ago, when web advertising was all the rage, and all we needed to do to sell ad space was to get a few thousand subscribers. Nowadays, even sites with hundreds of thousands of visitors can’t rely on advertising revenue for survival. Most ezines nowadays don’t even reach 1,000 subscribers, and most of them won’t be interested in your offers. It won’t take long for you to realize that to sell something to your subscribers, first you have to establish an almost personal relationship with them. They will have to know you very well, and feel very comfortable with you before they will be ready to purchase anything. You will need to post your picture on your website, give lots of testimonials, get positive press coverage from important media outlets, have a physical address (not just an email address), and, if possible, conduct seminars so that your subscribers can get to know you in person. Again, a lot of hard and time-consuming work, but if you want the big payoff there is no other way.

Myth #5: Give things away and they will buy

Most people that look for freebies, and receive freebies, will always expect freebies. It is extremely hard to turn freeloaders into paying customers, especially on the web, where almost everything is free. Instead of putting a lot of emphasis on your free gifts, use your web space to explain very, very well your product or service. Try to anticipate all your customer’s needs, answer all their questions, point out all your benefits, and, after that, include a short contact form so that interested parties can contact you. The time you spend following up with those prospects will give you much better results than if you just rely on showering a large pool of unqualified prospects with free gifts and see what trickles down.

Bottom line, nothing worthwhile in life is easy, and marketing on the web is not different. Uncover the myths, filter out the hype, plan well, invest time and work hard, and you’ll have a better chance of getting results and being successful.