Create a dating site that will be profitable

The Internet made communication much easier. Not only does it let you socialize in the comfort of your home, but also enables to get in touch with people regardless of their geographical location. Many use that advantage to find new friends and even soulmates.

Internet dating is becoming increasingly popular, and numerous web services that aim at bringing people together can be found more and more often across the internet space these days.

Do you think you could commit yourself to the cause too? If so, you just need to create a dating site that would attract visitors and encourage them to communicate with each other. Running a dating website can be rather lucrative if you manage to get enough people involved. But to start a dating service, you require either a professional programmer that will get the job done for you or powerful dating site software.

How to create a dating website: the easiest and most affordable way

If you don’t know how to start a dating site on your own, don’t hurry to hire a web developer. Consider using a dating website builder that can do the same job - but faster and cheaper.

Ning is an online platform allowing you to create a social dating website full of amazing networking features which will let your customers communicate and find each other quickly and easily.

To begin with, create a free dating website on Ning to attract more visitors and build your audience. When you have a basic clientele to work with, you can start introducing monetization on your website. Steadily, if your site is doing well, you will get a wider range of options to increase your revenues. But before that, you have to make sure your website has everything your customers need to feel comfortable and engaged. So let’s find out what makes a competitive dating website and how Ning can help you build it.

Define a niche for your dating website

When you enter the internet dating market, be prepared for a severe competition. To increase your chances to succeed, start with defining your niche. Decide what kind of audience you are going to work with. If you manage to narrow your niche down to a very specific target audience, you will set yourself apart from many competitors.

When you create dating sites for singles, you should clearly imagine the dating profiles you target. Make a research of dating profile examples on the internet to get the train rolling. This will help you understand what kind of people are likely to be interested in your services.

Be creative and consider all possible options and their combinations:

• Create a private dating site or public dating site;
• Create a local dating site or site without any geographical limitations;
• Create a website for matchmaking / singles dating / black dating / quick dating / animals dating (pets dating), etc.
• Make a dating site for professionals, for over 50 (or other age) singles, for gays, for lesbians or other target groups.

Pick a brand name and domain

You will obviously have to give your dating website a name. This step goes hand in hand with choosing a domain name because people will associate your website’s URL directly with your brand name. Take your time to come up with a catchy, meaningful, and easy-to-remember name that would give people an idea of what your website is specializing at. Then pick a corresponding domain name.

Building your dating website on Ning, you can either create a native domain (your_domain_name.ning.com) for free or use your custom domain. In addition to that, you get a free hosting service. The storage you can use depends on the subscription plan selected.

Shape the design of your dating website

As soon as you have a domain name, choose one of the dating website templates provided by Ning. By doing so, you will set the basic design theme for your site.

Visual appearance is very important for dating websites as it is the first thing a user pays attention to before deciding whether to stay or not.

After you decide on the template, you can proceed to customize your website further. You can change a background image, page layout, and fonts, modify header and navigation buttons, add your logo, etc.

If you’re interested in a more advanced customization, you can add custom CSS, JavaScript, and HTML pages.

In other words, Ning provides you with all the tools you need to personalize your dating website and make it look stunning, both on a desktop and mobile devices.

Provide options for communication

Communication is one of the crucial aspects of any dating website. People want to get in touch with those who could possibly become their life-long partners after all.

That’s why you have to make sure the visitors to your site have as many communication options as possible.

Websites built on Ning enjoy the following advantages in this regard:

• Chat: create a dating chat where users can easily exchange messages with each other.
• Private and group messaging: network members can send each other personal messages or address several members belonging to a single group at once.
• Forums: you can start a dating forum on your website and enable users to start discussions and participate in them.
• Polls: initiate polls to get feedback from your network members.
• Social media integration: social sharing, liking, and member sign-in via social media accounts are all available on Ning networks.

Start a dating blog

Thanks to an advanced blogging feature by Ning, you can publish blog posts right on your website. Share online dating tips and online dating advice with your network members, post interesting articles and other content to keep users engaged.

You can share your blog posts on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and others to make sure they reach as many people as possible.

Members of your dating network can write blog posts too. Posts can be discussed in the comments section, which takes communication on your website to the whole new level.

Monetize your dating website

Before your dating website gets enough audience, you can temporarily keep it free. There are few alternative ways to generate income while your dating site is still developing. Consider contacting companies that deal with affiliate programs or selling your customers’ personal data and leads to other firms if you want to start making money as soon as possible. Ning also supports integration with Google AdSense, so you can show advertisements on your website and get paid for that.

But the highest income can only be expected when your dating website becomes popular. Then you can introduce paid membership, and your customers will pay you for getting access to your site and all its features.

Except for the paid membership, Ning offers other monetization options. You can set up paid access to your premium content by creating paywalls or collect voluntary donations.

Make use of other features supported by Ning

There are other advantages to enjoy on Ning! Thanks to the functionality and user-friendliness of the platform, you can manage your site and online community efficiently and effortlessly:

• Use simple and robust interface to tweak every detail of your website;
• Modify the design of your site with a convenient Design Studio;
• Upload photos, videos, and audio content;
• Create events for more engagement;
• Set up as many member groups or categories as you want and customize member profiles;
• Use a Member Ranking System and motivate network members to be active;
• Broadcast messages, send automated emails, and set up a real-time activity feed to keep your network members updated on the recent news and events;
• Integrate with YouTube and Vimeo, as well as other 3rd party services like eBay, MailChimp, and Spotify;
• Optimize your website for search engines with a simple and effective inbuilt SEO tool.

Ning will help you to create a perfect dating website and lively online community. We prepared all necessary tools for this challenging, yet rewarding task. Get your 14-day free trial and see for yourself!