You might not realize it, but the quality of your online dating profile directly relates to your ability to find the right person to date. You know what they say about first impressions, and it’s true regarding your profile.
Some of you reading this will think that all you have to do is slap a few words together and upload a picture, and that’s it. If you think that will work in today’s world of online dating, you’re sorely mistaken.
You need to think of your profile as if it’s an advertisement for a business. You are advertising yourself, whether you want to believe that or not.
What you’re trying to do, above all else, is to attract the right kind of person to message you. The purpose of your profile is to weed out the bad seeds and ensure that those you want to connect with you take the leap of faith and send that precious first message to you.
Importance of a Strong Online Profile
First impressions matter. People will read your profile and make a snap judgment as to who you are. Does your profile have lots of typos in it? It’s surprising how many people don’t even take the time to read their profile to ensure there are no simple mistakes.
What would you think if you stumbled upon a person who claimed to be college educated but couldn’t even spell the word educated? You’d hit the back button or swipe in the other direction, and it’s understandable if you think about it.
Think of your profile as the worm on the end of a fishing hook. Your profile is what lures people in. Does it sound creepy to lure someone in? Not really; if you consider the purpose of a dating site, it’s to connect strangers and hopefully kindle a fire that burns bright.
An optimized profile will get you more results. How? Well, first off, if you optimize your profile the right way, the best possible matches will see it. That means you need to go through your profile and make sure that you’re not only being grammatically correct, but you also need to think about what you put in there. If you smoke and prefer to date smokers, you’ll need to make sure to include information like that as well.
Select the Perfect Profile Picture
You’ve heard the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. It’s true. Your profile picture is the one thing that people will spend more time looking at than anything. Potential matches will read all of your profile, but before they get to that place, they’ll look at your profile.
If your profile picture is terrible, people will keep swiping. Think about it like this: would you read the profile of a person with an ugly picture? That’s not to say the person is ugly, but even a beautiful person can have an ugly profile picture.
Here are some tips to ensure that you have a great profile picture:
Choose a High-Quality Photo
You don’t need to hire a professional photographer; however, you do need a good picture for your profile. It’s best to have someone else take the photo for you, but if you’re in a pinch, a selfie with your smartphone will work just fine.
Show Your Smile
Don’t shy away from showing off her pearly whites. A smile is a must because people react differently to a picture of a smile than a frown. You want people to see you as a happy person, not someone who is constantly grumpy.
Dress to Impress
Your profile picture isn’t the time to look like a slouch. Make sure you’re wearing your best clothes, and they’re clean. You also want to ensure your hair is combed and your teeth are brushed before taking the picture.
Avoid Group Photos
The main reason why you want to avoid group photos is because you don’t want to confuse the person. If you’re a woman and you’re in a picture of a bunch of ladies at a wedding, the person might not know who you are. It’s not good enough to point out that you’re the brunette. Skip all that and just upload a picture of yourself without anyone in it.
Use a Recent Photo
Some of you who are, well, let’s say, more mature may want to post a picture of yourself from ten years or longer ago. Don’t do it. Nothing is worse than meeting someone who looks over the hill when you expect them to be youthful and vibrant looking. Try to use the most recent photo that you have and if you don’t have one, break out your smartphone and snap one.
Craft a Compelling Bio
Now is your time to tell the world who you are. Up until now, you were showing the world with your profile pictures, now is where words do the talking.
A little humor goes a long way when creating your bio. You don’t need to be a stand-up comedian, though, people will be more responsive to your profile if you make them laugh. Being lighthearted and giving people a reason to continue reading is the best advice anyone can give you.
What you’re trying to do more than anything else is make sure that the reader knows your personality type. Conveying this with colorful language that highlights who you are is the best thing to do.
You need to realize this isn’t a biography, and no one wants to know where you went to summer camp when you were ten years old. There’s a balance between too much information and just enough, and that’s what you’re trying to achieve.
Think of your bio as a few paragraphs that tell people who you are without going overboard. Remember, if they want to learn more about you, they can do so by contacting you. What you’re trying to do here is give people the motivation to contact you without writing so many words that it makes them want to skip your profile altogether.
Showcase Hobbies and Interests
You don’t want to appear to be a stick in the mud. People want to date someone that shares their same interests. You must include interests that you can share with your potential date. It might not be the best idea to include sewing in your list of hobbies because that’s a solo adventure, however, things like hiking or bird watching are hobbies that you can talk about.
Dating isn’t just about falling in love and going to restaurants where you eat far too much food and feel guilty about it later. They say opposites attract, but that’s not true. You want to share these things in common with your date, and the only way to do it is to make sure they know what you’re into.
Make a list of roughly five things that you like to do. Ask yourself if these are things that the opposite sex would enjoy doing on a date. Keep whittling down the list until you get a handful you know are real winners. There’s no use in sharing your love of pumpkin carving if it’s not something that you can do with someone else.
The best connections are always sparked when people do things they enjoy together. If you have a passion for a hobby, make it known. Nothing would be better than finding someone else who is as passionate about flying kites as you are. Who else would ever understand why you spend countless hours guiding a triangle attached to a string?
Honesty and Transparency
Do you know that area on your bio where you tell people what you do for a living? Also, the place where you mention how much money you make? It’s not good to lie in these sections or any of the others.
If you flip burgers for a living, don’t tell people you’re a doctor. If you’re uncomfortable mentioning how much you make or what you do for a living, leave those areas blank.
It’s never a good idea to lie on any part of your bio. That includes your age, marriage status, or anything else. Shaving a few years off your age might sound like a good idea, but when you show up at your date’s door, and you’re an old man, they’ll immediately know you’re sketchy.
If you’re concerned that someone might not want to date you because you’re divorced, lying about your past marriage is not okay. Relationships started on lies have a way of spiraling out of control quickly. Honesty is the best policy, and if you lie, you will get hurt badly.
Just remember, if there’s something you don’t want to talk about, don’t mention it in your bio. You can discuss many different things when you’re sending messages back and forth with potential dates. You also need to be concerned for your privacy, so keep an eye on how much of the beans you’re spilling because it can get messy.
Highlight Personal Achievements and Ambitions
Put yourself in the shoes of the person reading a profile, and you’ll understand why highlighting achievements and ambitions are important. You don’t want to date a deadbeat that isn’t going anywhere in life, and what you’re trying to do is avoid looking like one.
You don’t want to embellish your achievements. Don’t say you went to the moon on a NASA mission if you’ve only seen it through a telescope. The person reading your bio should know you’ve accomplished something during your time here on Earth.
Important things to mention are where you’ve been, what you’re currently doing, and where you want to go. You don’t want to overdo it and spend your entire bio talking about these things. A balance is what you’re trying to strike.
You need to mention where you hope to be in the next ten years or so. Keep your dreams in check so the person doesn’t think you’re someone with your head in the clouds. Make sure your ambitions are reasonable, or the person will pass you off as another one of those people who are all dreams and no actions.
Regularly Update the Profile
The average person reading this right now will make one mistake, and it will cost them. You want to make sure that your profile is constantly being updated. No, you don’t need to update your profile every day.
How often should you update your profile? Well, there’s no rule set in stone for how often you should update your profile.
You should update your pictures every few months, at the very least. It’s a good idea to make your profile pictures seasonal. It’s a nice little touch that lets people know you’re still active on the dating site.
You want to read through your bio and make sure everything is current. If you move to another city, you’ll definitely want to change that. It’s little things like forgetting to change your city if you move or anything else that is pertinent that can really cause problems down the line for you.
The main thing you’re trying to do is show the dating site and the people who scroll through it that your profile is active and it’s updated often. If people think that your dating profile hasn’t been updated in a few years, they’ll think that you left the platform and are no longer in the dating scene.
Conclusion
You’ve probably never thought much about your online dating profile until reading this. You may have looked at hundreds, if not thousands, of profiles, but you never really thought about crafting the perfect profile.
You are your profile, and that’s the one takeaway you need to know from all of this. People make snap judgments on dating websites, and you have a few seconds to capture the attention of singles in your area. You have no more than a couple of seconds to wow someone, or they are off to the next profile.
Make sure that people can clearly see you in your profile picture. Show your body type, what you look like, and flash a big grin. Don’t lie. If you don’t feel comfortable saying something, leave it out and mention it during your conversations.
If you don’t get the results that you want, go back and tweak your profile. You might even want to have a friend take a look at it and ask if they think something is missing.
Even if your profile is working perfectly, don’t forget to update it after a while. Add a new picture here and there, and also make sure that all the information is correct.
Go out there and find love. At the very least, find yourself a dinner date.
