1. Presentation, presentation, presentation. An online dating profile is essentially an ad to sell yourself. Write about your leading qualities, i.e. being intelligent, your looks, physique or ambitions. If you need help, ask your friends to make a list of the qualities they like in you.



2. Get a picture. Ladies, here is a tip. Men are visual creatures and they are attracted to the outer qualities. It has been proven that dating profiles with pictures get more attention than profiles without pictures. In fact many people refuse to respond to a dating profile without a picture.

3. Get a good picture. It's one thing to have a picture, but don't grab the first picture you can find. It is worth looking into getting a picture professionally taken at a portrait studio. Many studios will provide you with electronic pictures, which you can upload to your profile.

4. Also time date your pictures. This gives some authenticity, and also prevents online scammers from stealing your photos to create fake profiles. Use a recent picture, preferably something taken within the last six months. Don't use that picture you took when you were in high school. The first thing your date will say, is "You look nothing like your profile."

5. Dating is like fishing, put as many lines in the water as you can. The beauty of online dating is that a person can respond to as many people as they have time. If a man sends out 100 e-mails in a month, chances are 30 women will respond and he will get dates from about 10. In real life most men don't get the chance to ask 100 women out in one month. The great thing about online dating is that it expands the number of potential dates you can get. Most people only meet other singles at work or at church or through friends.

6. Remember netiquette. Since all of online dating is done via the Internet, the written word is critical. It is good manners to write e-mails which have the correct grammar and are free of spelling errors. One more thing, it is bad netiquette (Internet etiquette) to use all caps. It makes it look like you are shouting and is difficult to read.

7. First contact. Once you have seen a profile you like and exchanged a few e-mails, I suggest you move to the next level of communication. You can have a more personal online conversation through Instant Messenger programs like Yahoo, AOL or MSN. Alternatively you can also talk on the phone.

8. Meeting in person. If you click on the phone or through instant messenging. The next step is to meet in person. It is best to arrange your first meeting in a public place, i.e. a restaurant or mall. Many times people are very different in person than their online personas, so safety is critical.

9. Have an exit strategy. I suggest that you should budget about one hour for a date. If the date goes well and you are clicking you can prolong it, but one hour is usually enough to get a feel for someone. However if the person is not to your liking or looks completely different from their pictures (this happens often), you need an exit strategy. One of the easiest plans is to have a friend call you about 30 minutes into the date, if things are going well you can tell them you will call them back. If things are going badly simply say, “I just received an urgent call, I need to take care of an emergency.”

10. Follow up. It is good manners for men to call women the next day, just to say hello, and make sure they got home okay. For women, most men appreciate a phone call or note saying that you enjoyed the first date. If you do not hear from you date within the next week, lose their number and move on.

So here are a few tips to world of online dating. If you use some of these tips, they will help you stay safe and also get more potential dates.