Online dating is becoming the preferred method of dating for a lot of men and women. It was a held generalization a few years ago that you either had to be socially awkward or a psychopath to have a real profile on a matchmaking site. That was a few years ago. Due to the influx of social networking sites, it appears that the overflow of serious date seekers have been introduced to the concept of meeting decent people online, and have started to use sites like match.com, Nerve.com , and other specialty sites (not eHarmony).

This article is specifically for men, there are beautiful women to be found online, you just have to seek the women out efficiently and give yourself the best chances for responses to your emails and requests.

I’ve had incredible success with online dating, and in this article outlined some of the surefire tactics I’ve used to dramatically increase women’s response rate and getting dates.

Photo Rotation For Higher Responses

I can’t take credit for this tactic, but will mention it first because of its sheer simplicity in boosting your success. I learn about this technique in an interview I had with Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek. I asked Tim what yielded the highest profile views with his online dating efforts, and I later confirmed this technique for myself. The trick is to rotate your profile photo every week. This does a number of things. It places your profile near the top of search results because of it being new. Matchmaking sites love to have active users, and this is one of the ways they use to gauge it. Another valuable reason is that it keeps women who weren’t interested in you before because of a particular “look" you may have had in another photo that didn’t stand out to them in her search results before. Oh, and before I forget, never post a photo with your shirt off. Never.

Never Wink

You may have seen on some of these online dating sites a feature called “Wink" or “Poke". Hmm… poke? Don’t use these features. They are completely and utterly counterproductive to you. They are for women to express a small interest in you, not for you to be a wuss to express interest in a woman that you think is a good match.

Use Direct Subject Lines To Get Your Point Across

In that same interview with Tim, he said he was getting a 20% or so response rate. Then one of his Virtual Assistants tried a very different approach, a subject line with a direct attitude. He used “Looking For A Date" as the subject line with amazing results. Apparently, his return email rate got a 50% jump to 70% of every email he sent out with that subject line. I don’t recommend using that particular line, but come up with your own direct lines. Remember, when a woman is getting 50+ emails a day from every time of man, it’s a good idea to stand out.

Don’t Be Too Dominant, But Don’t Be A Pushover

A lot of guys send out emails saying, “You’re so cute" or “I had to contact you, I think we have a lot in common." Yawn. Take it from a purely statistical standpoint. When you’re receiving those emails one after the other, they’re getting old. Look at her profile, does something jump out? If so, mention it in the first few lines of the email, but not in a pushover way. If she has an interest in Costa Rica, be flirty about your take on it. “You’ve been to Costa Rica? I’ll take it that you dodged Miguel, that local conman at the airport in San Jose, and got to surf in " Basically, you want to point out something about her in a non-sucking up way. But you don’t want to be an asshole by saying “You’ve been to Costa Rica? Hmm… Maybe we can go together sometime, if you’re lucky!" Ok, that screams creepy, and delete is the destination for anything that in overtly says it. What I’m saying is, you want to be confident, but not seem arrogant, and you want to come across with security. It’s OK to send longer emails, but don’t jump into deep identity conversations at first, remember you’ve got some time if you make that good impression, so take it easy and keep it light.

Limit Your Search To Increase Your Results

Guys want it all. They want every woman that they find attractive. This mindset is the approach most men are wired with, which can be a flaw when the algorithms on matchmaking websites kick in. Basically, say you live in 90028, Hollywood. When you search with a 10 mile radius, because of the population you will get drastically different results than a 5 mile radius search using the exact same 90028 zip code. What’s going on? Wouldn’t the search results just return as many possible results as it can? No, because that’s not the way they’re setup. Here’s the flaw in their system, and how I used to search for women in my local area. Most online dating sites have a result limit, which dictates that if 100 pages of results are returned for a 10-mile radius search from 90028 then only 50 pages will show as results. This excludes a bunch of women in your 90028 zip code because of preference for more active users in that 10-mile radius. Another technique that you should employ if you really want to search in the 10-mile radius (or whatever distance you prefer) is to choose preferences. Say you love brunettes; search a larger radius around your zip-code (depending on the population in your local area) with that specification and you’ll get more results that you’re interested in.

By using these tactics, you’ll dramatically increase your online dating success, and won’t be wasting so much money on the monthly fees which yield little or no women to date.