How to increase your online dating chances and save money

February 26th, 2009

Here’s a handy tip if you want to increase your chances of finding someone to love (or date) online.

You probably already know that it’s worth trying out a few sites before deciding which one to sign up and pay for.
But once you’ve chosen one or two you think are definitely worth your time and money, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t add your profile to some other sites as well. It’s a more effective way to date online and the closest thing you can get to being in more than one place at the same time.

So here’s what you do. Look at lots of different dating sites, choose the one or two you want to actually subscribe and pay for and start actively dating there (running searches, contacting people, etc.) Meanwhile, go back to your original bigger list of sites, get rid of the ones you think are so bad you’d never want to use and make a nice, smaller B-list of sites.

Add your profile to those, and make sure it’s as good as the one you’re using on the site you’re paying for (you can use exactly the same one). Now, just leave them there and see if anyone contacts you. If nobody does – you’ll know you’ve probably made the right decision by not paying to date there (although maybe you’d have had different results if you’d put the effort in). If someone does contact you, you will get an email from the site telling you this (unless you told the site not to email you, in which case you’ll need to change that or potentially miss out). If someone messages you, you can usually check out the person’s profile for free, so you can decide whether they are cute enough to warrant paying in order to read their message.

If the person looks interesting – it might be worth taking out a subscription to the site in order to speak to them. What subscription you take will depend on you and the site you’re using. Some sites will let you sign up for short subscriptions (a week or a few days) while others reserve that right only as a trial, so you’d only be able to do it once. Worst case scenario is you’ll need to sign up for a month’s membership, but you can always cancel before the month’s out if you want to.

This way, your profile could be working for you while you’re actively searching for matches on a different site. If things go quiet on that one, you can always use this time to run some searches on your unpaid-for sites to see whether it’s worth switching your paid membership elsewhere (while leaving your profile to work for you on the original site, of course!)

One thing to be careful of is sites that have a feature that lets their members message a whole load of random people at once. Such a message could turn up in your box, but won’t necessarily mean the person has singled you out for contact. I personally know of people who met and fell in love in this way, though, so don’t discount it! Our dating company had thank you emails from quite a few happy “carpet bombers”. Just try to take a cautious, short term membership if possible, before jumping in with your card, to see if that person is really interested in you (or date on sites that don’t offer this feature).

Related posts:

1. The best online dating site
2. There’s no room for wall flowers in online dating
3. 5 things you need to get over if you want to find love online
4. Getting replies to your online dating messages
5. Online dating tip: Are you still wasting your time with ice breakers?

Entry Filed under: Online Dating Tips