How to successfully run an online dating site.

May 29
07:55

2009

Matt Fuller

Matt Fuller

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http://www.hookmeup.com.au Online dating has had an enormous impact on the singles market over the past twelve years or so and has gained incredible momentum during this time for both business owners and end users (customers)

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Big corporate online dating companies,How to successfully run an online dating site. Articles 90% of which were among the first to enter the dating industry have well and truly entrenched themselves as industry leaders. This principal certainly relates to any industry meaning those who successfully put new ideas into action usually end up leading the way in their chosen industry. Sooner or later as they become more successful, others will begin to challenge them for market share.


So the online dating industry from a business point of view as it currently stands is made up of a handful of huge companies and thousands of smaller businesses competing to find untapped niche ideas. Competing in the main stream is achievable but requires extreme patience, research and careful planning even before you launch a new dating website.


One of the biggest hurdles new comers to the industry will face is achieving good search results within the Google search engine. It is relatively easy to optimize a website for search engine rankings if you target less competitive keyword phrases than the most commonly searched keywords. Commonly searched keywords such as online dating, dating or singles could take around one or two years to achieve search engine exposure due to the amount of competition fighting for those same keyword rankings.


Most search engine optimization experts will recommend that in competitive online businesses, it is wise to aim for high search engine results targeting less competitive keywords. For example: 1/ Competitive keyword - 'Singles' 2/ Less competitive option - 'Online singles website' Option 2 is also referred to as a long tail keyword. One of the benefits of targeting long tail keywords is that several other search combinations are also being optimized at the same time. For example: 'Singles online' and 'singles website'. So from that one keyword phrase stated in option two, there are three keyword phrases that you should soon start ranking for on Google search.


Setting up your site: Structuring your online dating site is the first thing you need to get right so your dating site is search engine friendly. If you are out sourcing someone else to build your online dating site make 100% certain they know how to structure your site correctly for search engine purposes. You would be amazed at the amount of diligent website designers that have little clue on structuring a website correctly for search engines. Its a very similar comparison to an offline business where by a shop may have had a $100,000 fit out and looks amazing, but its five streets back from the main road and nobody knows its there. A website is no different, you need to be seen.


Firstly, it is important to include text on every page relevant to the topic of that page. Don't use images for text purposes, in fact try not to over do it with images for illustration purposes either. Search engines ignore images but love text content. Meta titles and descriptions are what Google first views when it starts crawling your site. Customize the meta information for each pages relevancy. Your meta title should be less than ten words. Your meta description can be as long as you like, however two or three sentences is fine. Next you need to make sure each page's url is relevant to the topic of that page and includes keywords - Notice the word relevant keeps coming up! Now you have a well structured search engine friendly online dating site, however it wont be enough to rank on the first page of Google, yet, but at least you know you are starting on a level playing field.


These next steps will bring you inbound organic links. Organic links are when other sites or blogs link to your site from theirs. These types of links are far more valuable and will bring you much better results than manually listing your site with directories. Listing with directories is fine for building some foundation for your link building campaign, but organic (natural) links is what you need, and lots of them that are mostly relevant to singles , online dating or chat rooms depending on your target niche. Don't get conned into promised short cuts like link farms, there are no short cuts that will give you long term rankings, the fastest way is to do it by the book. Organic links don't grow on trees so you need to be able to make your dating site interesting enough so others will want to link to you. Heres how....


Install an article software module on your home page. Ensure the software allows you to customize the meta information as described above so each article is search engine friendly. You will need to compose three to five articles per week each of around 450 words and upload them onto your articles module. The articles you compose will need to be original, 100% unique content and relevant to your site. (Don't try to fool anybody by submitting other peoples work that is already on the net, it will do you more damage than good.) Wait for around 2 weeks then submit the article to around eight article submission sites. Bloggers, journalists and the like will use your articles for their sites effectively giving you organic links.


Its a long haul, but for those willing to commit to the challenge, owning one or several successful online dating sites can be lucrative and offers a great lifestyle allowing you to work from home setting your own hours.