Looking for Some Helpful advice about starting a Dating website

[HandballJim]

I recently acquired a catchy domain name that I think could work for a fun dating website. I am leaning towards mainstream so that I can place google ads on the pages.

If I decided to start from scratch do you recommend using wordpress/buddypress or a PHP script? Or maybe just go mobile with an android app?

If I wanted to use an already established mainstream dating program, any opinions on white labels?

Thanks

[ajrocks]

Starting a dating site is really one of the harder options to get rolling. It really is the chicken and the egg. How do you get members when you don't have members? How do you convert people to members, how is the retention of your members, what can you afford to pay affiliates, fraud, the list goes on and on.

There really aren't any out of the box complete solutions for you. I would say you should stick to a white label instead of trying to get something running from ground up. There are some people out there offering white labels that are decent. Just remember that who you partner with will directly affect your conversion. Check out other peoples sites that are using the same white label, do they have spam issues, do they inbox? How are their conversions and retention. You need to do some research and talk to people that are actually doing it.

[NaughtyRob]

If you need profiles let me know I have a few hundred.

[HandballJim]

Originally Posted by ajrocks

Starting a dating site is really one of the harder options to get rolling. It really is the chicken and the egg. How do you get members when you don't have members? How do you convert people to members, how is the retention of your members, what can you afford to pay affiliates, fraud, the list goes on and on.

There really aren't any out of the box complete solutions for you. I would say you should stick to a white label instead of trying to get something running from ground up. There are some people out there offering white labels that are decent. Just remember that who you partner with will directly affect your conversion. Check out other peoples sites that are using the same white label, do they have spam issues, do they inbox? How are their conversions and retention. You need to do some research and talk to people that are actually doing it.

aww shoot I forgot about the spam issues, I had so many issues in the past with spam on my handball social network that I had to approve all members. Most of the spam were coming from specific email extensions so I would delete those members ASAP.

hmmm makes me think that I might just want to sell this domain instead of spending money for marketing that will be hampered with spammers.

[HandballJim]

Originally Posted by ajrocks

Starting a dating site is really one of the harder options to get rolling. It really is the chicken and the egg. How do you get members when you don't have members? How do you convert people to members, how is the retention of your members, what can you afford to pay affiliates, fraud, the list goes on and on.

There really aren't any out of the box complete solutions for you. I would say you should stick to a white label instead of trying to get something running from ground up. There are some people out there offering white labels that are decent. Just remember that who you partner with will directly affect your conversion. Check out other peoples sites that are using the same white label, do they have spam issues, do they inbox? How are their conversions and retention. You need to do some research and talk to people that are actually doing it.

The issue I have with using another companies white label is if they stop operations your dead in the water. I like the idea of control and accomplishment you have running and establishing your own website from scratch. But the members issue is always a trick, even Match is getting sued for fake profiles. What I have done in the past is ask everyone I know to sign up to get things started, and tell them they can delete their profile later on. Usually get about 100 people to start.

[pegginglovers]

Follow link in signature to establish your own dating site.
and PM me if you need any help/ tips for traffic etc.
Reach me on info @ datingbanking .com

[Rochard]

Create a white label with Dating Factory. Easy, can be done in five minutes... We'll even let you run your own ads in the members areas. With a white label system, you'll share members across our platform and instantly have millions of members...