The Roadmap to Online Dating Success, Part 2: The Perfect Profile

Profiles
  • Wednesday, November 18 2009 @ 08:26 am
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Craft an online dating profile. Remember, your profile isn’t for you – it’s for your potential dates! Seth Godin, marketing genius, once spoke to the folks at Google about cat food. You see, cat food is not for cats. Sure, it provides nourishment for cats, but cat food is really for people. If cat food were for cats, it would come in Freshly-Dead Mouse flavor. As it stands, cat food comes in flavors like Grilled Salmon. Know any cats who insist their salmon be grilled? I sure don’t!

Think about the things that you’d want a potential mate to appreciate about you and do with you. Write about these things with passion and the most descriptive language you can. Paint a picture of a life that your ideal mate would love to jump right into and experience with you. And remember, marketing isn’t about lying. (It can be, but it’s not in this case.) It’s about putting your best face forward and writing for the audience you hope to attract.

In that same vein, choose recent and appropriate photos. Those shots you took in the dark with your webcam, or that you doctored up with various photo editing programs are not the photos you want to use here. We’re talking high res, good quality photographs. If you can get professional photos taken, awesome. If you can’t, hand a camera to a friend and have them take pictures of you doing what you normally do.

Once you’ve dug through all the photos you’ve taken in the past 6 months, you’ll want to choose the following:

  • 1-2 close-ups of your face (at least one looking at the camera)
  • 1 full body shot
  • 1 candid shot of you engaged in an activity you enjoy
  • 1-2 of your choice, can be group shots

Don’t forget to avoid the deadly sins of profile photos! No red plastic cups, no drunken photos, no cropping/blurring out people, no obvious Photoshopping, no shirtlessness (ladies: no excessive cleavage!), and no old photos of you 30 lbs lighter.

Finally, once you have the profile written and pictures chosen, run everything by a trusted friend. Can’t trust your friends? Run it by me and I’ll help you improve it. Once these steps are done, you’re ready to take your profile live on the dating sites of your choice.

Related Stories:
The Roadmap to Online Dating Success, Part 1: Choosing Your Site
The Roadmap to Online Dating Success, Part 3: Before You Send Any Emails
The Roadmap to Online Dating Success, Part 4: Emails and Winks
The Roadmap to Online Dating Success, Part 5: The Daily Grind