12 Tips to Constructing a Dating Profile That Gets Women to Contact YOU

For more information about our services, including online dating profile rewrites and critiques, live approach workshops as well as private coaching sessions, click here.

EDITOR'S NOTE - Stephen and I would like to thank everyone in Boston that came out for our presentation last weekend. We look forward to seeing you guys again in the near future.
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The guys that have the most success with online dating are the ones that hardly ever have to send out an opening email (unless they want to, of course). These are the guys whose profiles are so intriguing that they actually have a steady flow of women contacting THEM.

I remember hitting a point a few years ago where I was handling so much incoming traffic that I no longer had the time (or the interest) to actively search for women online. When you find yourself wanting to complain to your buddies that you simply don’t have the time to meet all of these women, you will know that you are doing something right.

Now for the good news. It is not that difficult to make yourself stand out online. All it takes is an initial time investment and some occasional maintenance. And fortunately, all the tools you need to put together your own kick-ass profile are right here on this website.

Here are twelve dos and don’ts for constructing a top-notch profile that will have women contacting YOU:

1. Check out your ‘competition.’ – Before you even worry about what you are going to write, do a profile search of the guys in your geographical area that are close to you in age and height (and make sure you adjust your privacy settings so they wont know you checked them out!). These are the people you will be competing with in your respective dating pool.

What you will notice is that a great majority of these guys are meatheads. Whether they are spewing their resumes, using meaningless adjectives to describe themselves or overtly talking about sex, almost every one of the guys has something in their profile that places them in the JACKASS zone.

Your job is to look for trends in these profiles – and make sure none of them appear anywhere in yours. After all, how can you stand out if you have the same info as everyone else?

2. Make sure that your photos are in order. This is the first place a woman is going to look when she is checking you out. And if you don’t pass the photo test, it doesn’t matter if you have the most eloquently written profile in the history of online dating – she aint gonna read it.

Check out our article entitled, “Online Dating – Your Photos” to ensure that you are not committing any photo blunders that will kill your chances with potential mates.

3. Make sure you have the basics down. These include proper grammar and spelling, use of a passive tone in your essays as well as the avoidance of clichés, meaningless adjectives and pessimistic language.

Our column entitled, “Seven Keys to Creating a Captivating Online Dating Profile” is a MUST READ and covers these areas in much more detail.

4. Be specific about yourself. This is the ‘bait’ that will entice a woman to write to you. Don’t just say you love to travel - talk about that time you walked on fire in California, told Polish jokes in Poland (very slowly) or how you are looking forward to getting back to Sydney. Or instead of proclaiming yourself to be a ‘pop-culture junkie,’ make a comment about how you think that people obsessed with Britney should get a life.

Being unique in your profile accomplishes several things. Not only will this information get women interested in you, but it will also give them something to write to you about. Also, you never know what could prompt a woman to send you an email, so the more interesting stuff you have in your profile, the more potential women you may reach.

The bottom line is this. The more you can express your uniqueness and creativity in your profile, the better you will fare online.



5. Answer ALL of the short answer/essay questions. Not only does this show women that you are serious about the online dating process, but it also gives you another opportunity to include something specific that can prompt a woman to write to you.

6. ‘Update’ your profile approximately once a week. This will put you back at the top of the search list. All you need to do is delete a word from one of your essays, retype it, and hit publish.

7. Include a 'call to action' at the end of your profile. What you want to do here is CHALLENGE her to write to you. You can do this by including something along the lines of, "if you think you can run with me, then START TYPING and let's see what you've got..."

8. Don't start your opening paragraph with the word “I.” This is the easiest way to make yourself stand out from everyone else – look at ten random profiles and you’ll see what I mean.

When a woman is doing a profile search, she will usually only get to see the first few words of someone’s intro paragraph. Having something other than the word I as your opener tells her that your profile has some substance to it, and she is not going to be subjected to another “I am” list. This will get her to click on you and explore further.

9. Don't include any salary information in your profile. Not only is this tacky, but it is also nobody's business.

10. Don’t include your job title in your profile. I know, everyone else is doing it – which is precisely why you should leave it out. It is also boring and non-descriptive.

You have two options here. Option one is to give a vivid description of what you actually do (i.e. instead of martial arts instructor, say “I teach kids how to handle bullies”).

Or you can go for the wiseass approach (my personal favorite), and tell people that you are a miniature golf caddy or you fix used paper clips. For a master list of fake jobs you can use, click here.

11. Don’t spew your resume. You only have a limited amount of space to express yourself in an essay. Why waste it with stuff that can be included elsewhere in your profile? This information may also make you look like you are showing off to try and impress them.

Make sure you leave some mystery in your profile. After she reads what you wrote, you want her thinking, “I love this guy. I wonder how he got to be the way he is. I can’t wait to find out more!”

And finally...

12. DON'T LIE IN YOUR PROFILE. While you should certainly strive to present yourself in your best light, you will not achieve this by making patently false statements. Things such as your age, height, current weight and current occupation are what they are.

Even if you wish things were different (i.e. your age), it is MUCH better to be honest about it than have her catch you in a lie later on (which she WILL). Once your credibility is blown, it is never coming back.

And by the way, this goes for pictures as well. If your photos show you at 185 pounds with a full head of hair, that better be how you currently look. Nothing is worse than showing up for a first meeting only to find that the person you spent time getting to know on email has misrepresented themselves in their photos.

At Approach Dynamics, our goal is to help you present yourself in your best light. Remember, first impressions are EVERYTHING, and having a creative, well-written profile will help you stand out from the crowd - a MUST for success in the online dating world.

We offer a number of different services for online dating, including email and phone consultations to answer any of your individual questions, a detailed critique of your existing online profile, or if you wish, we will write you a new one from scratch (with an emphasis on making sure it sounds like YOU).

We look forward to working with you.

Alexander Stone & Stephen David
Copyright 2008 - All rights reserved
Online Dating Edge / Approach Dynamics