How do I get my dating site going

Why don't you start with social media marketing, seeing how you got the right type of potential users in that area. Those looking to socialize may also be looking for some dating.

You can also do any other kinds of marketing. You have to provide some fuel to start the engine first, remember. So it is necessary to do some marketing at first, even if it costs you money.

Your site is perfectly fine, nothing wrong with the design. You need to promote it badly to make it a successful site. As, i see you are in the general niche as its going to be tough for you to do seo and get it ranked on page 1 to get organic traffic. So its better you start off with social media promotion and if possible then you can go for media buys to get instant traffic. For social media FB, Tumblr, myspace etc are good source of traffic for you. You just need to maximize your social media promotion to make most out of it. Lastly, you need targeted members only else you wont make money, as at the end all it matters is paid members and if your traffic isn't converting into paid members then you should check it properly and change your plan of action.

Your site is all over the place...I don't know what I'm looking at, or why I would want to sign up.

I would redesign the entire homepage, and stick with a cohesive theme/colours...also, I would get rid of those thumbnails. They're bush league.



Lastly, I would have this video playing on the homepage:

There are some banner exchange and topsite-list services for dating sites, join them to get some traffic, also advertise on dating review sites for dating sites.

You Can opt for Sponsored Advertising like Google Adwords, Facebook, Bing etc.

Ok so I see that you site in real in need of traffic. I have a few questions for you. Where is your facebook page? Have you done any PR. What is your advertising budget? Also have you done any research on this niche? I asked you this because once I was intrested in this niche and I really didn't know what I was getting into. You can pm and I can give you some advice. Take care.

Freebie giveaways from Banner ads on a related site. Get some dating articles on some article sites. Is you site in your sig? Warriors date don't they? Just my .02

If you have a budget for paid traffic,
You could try buying traffic from "Plenty Of Fish"

Using them you would be advertising directly to
people who are already looking to date others..

Sorry to piss all over your bonfire, but the big boys have already got this area wrapped up.

Your idea is akin to starting a new eBay, it just isn't going to happen unless you have a huge advertising budget to throw at it to make it work.

If I was you, I would cut your losses now. Please, don't spend any more money on it, don't spend any more time on it.

I am not being disresptful or anything like that, I am just trying to tell you what you should be hearing, rather than what others are telling you that you want to hear.

This sort of stuff is not easy.

I don't agree with those who said that you won't succeed.

But there are several changes I believe you should make to your current dating website.
1) Target audience - seems like everyone from my interpretation of your website. You should be more specific, such as having it aimed at singles who like 'certain interests' or are looking for 'certain types of people'
2) You should have a unique selling proposition (USP) - something which makes your website special. But if you did point one well, this USP thing should be well taken care of.
3) You should siphon traffic off Facebook, no need for Google in my opinion. There are a ton of desperate singles on Facebook always stalking people. If you can get into their brains and target them, you will succeed in driving good, qualified traffic.
4) Banner ads on other similar websites will work really great.

Why should anyone sign up for your site?
What does your site have to offer that eharmony, okcupid and plenty of fish don't?
Why should someone choose your site over okcupid or any other dating site for that matter?

If those questions aren't answered directly or implicitly within the first 10 seconds of landing on your site (which takes ages to load incidentally and looks very dated) then your site will likely not give you the results you're looking for.

For the first five years, I used ONLY article marketing to promote my dating site.

I am in a sub-niche of dating, i.e. very specialized dating. Just using the article marketing, I was able to secure hundreds of Google page one rankings, and nearly 50 #1 rankings in Google.

Then last December, I had an awesome month, so I began to branch out.

I have purchased banner ads on other dating websites and other "adult-related" websites. I have also purchased links from a variety of places, and I have purchased clicks from other websites. I even purchased banner ads on mobile phones.

I still see better returns from article marketing and Google rankings. So two months ago, I invested in another ten articles to use for article marketing to promote the site.

Have a kickass blog. This works especially well for the dating market. Both OKCupid and HowAboutWe have fantastic blogs that are incredibly interesting and compelling. (Well- I believe OKCupid's last blogpost was in 2011, but maybe they don't need to blog anymore now that they're so successful.)

Not all blogs are equally successful. But writing about sex and dating always gets you a huge audience, because that's something that interests pretty much everybody.

Try to find a niche. You'll have to answer "why should I use you instead of howaboutwe or okcupid"?

good luck, and may a great many people bang as a result of your efforts!

Start dating. Make some videos of your dates and post them on Youtube.

DO some videos and upload them to youtube and get a link to your site n the description. Use paid ads on facebook and other social media sites.

First of all disregard all the comments by those who said there are no money in dating sites and that it has been already saturated by big boys.
Nothing like such.
If you know what you are doing, you can make tons of money from your dating site.

I am looking at Recently Active Users on your home page and I can see 4 out of 9 profiles don't have photos of them. This is not good tactic.
Imagine you spending time, effort and money to bring traffic to your dating site and when traffic comes, they are not impressed with what they see. Obviously majority of the date seekers will not sign up when they see that profiles on home pages dont have photos, So customise your home page and only allow profiles with photos on it.

2nd, Remove Site statistics from home page as it shows that only 11 members registered last week, it shows that there aren't many members on your site, which means that users will not meet many people after signing up. so remove the site statistics from your home page.

Promotion; Make some very interesting videos and put them on you tube. Trust me youtube does send lots of traffic to dating site.

Create a face book page, make some effort and bring fans to it and make sure your site URL is in About Section of your page, so that your fans can see your URL easily.
Face book is very good for pulling traffic to dating sites as not many people on facebook are communicating socially, most of them will be easily influenced with good dating opportunity.

Good luck with your site.

I had to put on shades to look at your site.

promote your site with ppc campaign like google adword and bing advert

How many members do you have. I used to do dating alot in the ninety's and early 2000's but too much competition now and I do not have any desire to work a website day in day out.

You need lots of members. You can rent or buy members, just search it, there are only a few places but you will find it.

Now organic traffic is pretty much impossible to get, You can get some but not for what you need. PPC with plenty of fish will work some, as well as facebook ads. You have to be very smart with your ad or you will blow your money. Remember this, with this type of site a picture is worth a thousand times more than words.

Also if they have to wear shades then they are probably too old to enjoy that site anyways lol.
Colors are good, vibrant colors. Looks good. I see now you have like 11 members, do you really think you will have someone in there location with 11 members. Rent or buy members, it a must.
Good luck.

I don't know if you have to give up completely, but you do have to target a niche. As others have pointed out, you cannot simply do the same things that Match.com, eHarmony, etc. are doing.

From the layout and the URL, my guess would be that this is a dating site for Millennials. This would not be a poor choice of niche; since Millennials grew up online, they wouldn't see anything weird or strange about looking for dates and mates online. Learn as much about that market as you can and go after it. Take down the articles about senior dating and other content referring to older prospects. Get some fresh content on the site, pronto; your articles are all dated 2011 and 2012. As a customer, that says to me that the site is dead...along with the fact that you have 11 members total. As others have suggested, you need to buy or rent some seed members.

Is Avril Lavigne registered on your dating site? That REALLY looks like an image of her! Although her profile says she's 43, so it can't be.. Unless the media have been feeding us one big lie ever since she showed up in her schoolgirl outfit over a decade ago

Facebook is probably the best option for promoting your dating site

Wouldn't it be best to focus on the actual people/audience you want to attract instead of just finding the most popular sites to promote the site on? Facebook or youtube promotions would be great but there are lots of people doing that already so you might need a more unique way of getting noticed.. like promoting on popular social sites or chatrooms that have a more specific audience interested only in dating.

try omegle

I just went to check out your site and it is not there anymore it says that it has been suspended ...
You might want to take a look at it ...

working on dating niche can be a good experience if you make use of social networks, specially facebook ads, they can target the right age and group of people according to their interests.

i think white label dating site already covered many niches ... probably you didn't find hard enough or the niche is too small