Need Advice for my Dating Website

Ok so I have recently started a dating website for aussie singles, now I need some advice before I get stuck into the marketing and promotion of the site..

First - which do you prefer a colorful website that looks really cool or a clean and easy to navigate website kinda like a facebook look.

Paid or Free? Im thinking about making my site completly free to join and monitize it with ads like google. Is having a paid membership site easy to run?

What are the best features one could have on a dating site? My users can chat, blog, message, send gifts and lots of other features but what would be a really fun feature to keep them interested?

At the moment the site only has like 9 members how can I get more people to sign up? Should I add fake members to make the site look more active or just wait for some signups..

I really want to make a go of this site because I have been interested in making a dating site for a long time. So i am willing to put in the hard hards. I also want to have a site that people really enjoy being a member of. Any advice is good advice to me, please help.

my site - Easy Net Dating .com

 

Your dating site looks good. I believed dating is a very good as it is a "evergreen" non-saturated niche.
Most important the site must easy to use and navigate around, layout wise, it doesn't really matter. If possible use soft, brighter colors, pink and white would be good.

I think you should have both free and paid option. This is what most dating site do. The free section allow people to post their profile but limit the info that they can post. May be limit the photo size as well.

I came across script to manage dating site before, but can't remember where I saw it. The script links to the payment gateway for member who wish to upgrade to Premium member..things like that.

wish you luck !

 

You have appropriately ensured that your best looking members are on your homepage... That's a draw right there!

 

1. Clean colors, crisp logo

2. Free, all the best are free, like pof.com

3. Questionaires, online searches in local area, live chat

4. You can start by paying users to join from a forum like DP.. This is a common practice.

Nice domain, btw.. I would honestly focus on advertising. There are hundreds of dating sites on the net..

 

Looks good to me. I definitely like the colors and the background. You have a good use of your keywords.
The text just above the "sign up now" bottom could be a bit bigger. Just one size bigger and maybe in bold. Right now it's a bit small.
Also, you might want to consider having a logo contest here on DP. I had one for UstillUp (first sig. link) and as you can tell if you check it out, it looks really nice (and professional).

I would keep your site free for now, and put google adsense ads to get a bit of money. Nobody wants to pay for a dating site when there's nobody on. If people do pay, they may end up demanding their money back.
I would keep it free for a year or two, and then when you have tons of people, introduce small membership upgrade fees.

Anyhow, looks like you're now ready for a massive link building campaign. It shouldn't take to long to get into the top ten for key phrases like "online dating Australia". Best of luck.

 

Thank you all for your kind words and advice. Ray thank you will keep those questionaires in mind and Jasonvan your logo is great thanks for the tip. I will defenetly hold one of these competitions I think yours is the second I have seen from one of these comps abd both are fantastic.

Yes link building campaign here we come, do you think I should have more content first?? like more dating advice, more news or more content on the home page. Or should I just digg in now?

Thanks again everyone, awesome advice from awesome people on a very cool forum

 

don't use fake members..
make your site free..
give your members the opportunity to chat with each other