If I had a nickel…

A lot of my clients say that they’ve run their profile by their friends, who claim it ranges anywhere from “fine” to “great” but yet, they still don’t have any success on their online dating site. What gives?

One of my most recent clients fell into this camp. After reading my profile critique, he said:

Thanks for your suggestions. As if only I had came to you sooner.
I gave my profile to friends and they would tell me it’s good and
I would post it thinking everything’s fine.

Now, I’m not talking about people with boring dating profiles with barely any information. (It’s easy to figure out why those people don’t get emails.) This is for those people who fill their dating profile with personality, verve, and vocabulary!

Let’s see if you recognize this tale…

The Story of Your Dating Profile

You lovingly craft your online dating profile. It takes hours. You slave over it until you feel it totally reflects who you are and the kind of person you’re dying to have in your life. Your pals read it and they think it’s great – so interesting!

So awesome!

So NOT like the other profiles!

So unique!

Definitely YOU.

And since you trust your buddies, since your buddies know you, you figure it must be a great profile.

Unfortunately, the folks on your dating site don’t seem to think it’s so great. Nobody’s writing you… or at least not anybody you’d be interested in dating.

What gives?

The Problem With Your Voice

You are cool. Your voice… isn’t.

No, no, no, not your speaking voice.  I’m talking about your writing voice.  It may be cool and hip and intellectual, but it’s driving away your target audience. You may know lots of juicy words that make your sentences pop and sizzle, but if they’re not bringing in the potential dates, you have to start getting honest with yourself.

Why Your Friends Don’t See It

Your friends don’t see a problem with your profile because they’re your friends.

They hear your voice on a daily basis. They read your texts, emails, and IMs on a daily basis. To them, that profile is very YOU, and they grok it because they grok you through and through.

It’s like having a friend or coworker with a thick foreign accent. Since you’re around them all the time, you can understand them. But if someone new comes along, they’re going to struggle because they’re not used to it.

For someone who doesn’t know you, for a complete stranger, your writing voice is foreign.  They can’t follow the way you turn a phrase, they don’t understand why you’d choose that particular adjective, they connote certain words in totally different ways than you do.

To a stranger, your voice… just doesn’t sit right.  Your voice…. is uncomfortable.  Your voice… seems forced and awkward.

And when we read something that doesn’t sit right or that feels uncomfortable or forced or awkward… we want it to be over, and quickly!

Embrace the Help of a Stranger

The reason why my clients’ profiles do better after I critique them is because I’m able to read it with the eyes of a stranger, a copywriter, and an online dating veteran.

The stranger in me is able to see you with fresh eyes. We’re not buds; I don’t know how you operate. Thus, I am looking at your profile through the same lens that a potential date would. If I don’t understand something, I’ll let you know. If you’re using a word that makes me think of something totally inappropriate, I’ll be honest with you. If I just think you’re coming off as weird or creepy, I’ll tell you how to fix it.

The copywriter in me is able to pick out your best features and show you how to emphasize them. What are the benefits to being in your life? I can help you bring those to light.  I know the right words to get your message across to the potential love of your life.

The online dating veteran in me has been there, done that. I spend more hours per week on online dating sites than most single people!  I’ve read tons of profiles: men, women, straight, gay, bi, and every shade of gray in between. Your friends mean well, but I’ve got ‘em beat when it comes to hours invested in studying this niche of the internet.

Need Help?

J and I would love to help you make your online dating profile be the best it can be. We’re more honest and better trained than your buddies. Maybe we don’t know you as well, but we know the online dating biz up down and backwards.  In just a day or so, you could have a super-powered online dating profile.

A dating profile with your voice, only better.

Let’s just start this by saying that I adore both Chatty DM and Men with Pens.

(…I’m beginning to think my calling is to move to Canada!)

Either way, the Drive-by-Shooting is a blog consult where Harry and James of MWP go to your blog and basically shoot as many holes into it as the possibly can. It’s actually a pretty scary thought (which is why I haven’t signed up… yet), so I applaud Phil for rolling high in testicular fortitude.

Here’s the post where Musings of the Chatty DM gets shot up… and here is Phil’s response at Chatty DM.

I think that every blog has something that needs to be improved. Heck, I can find things in Men with Pens’ design that I don’t like! A big chunk of design is personal preference, but I agree with Harry and James that a larger chunk is usability. The best content in the world will be overlooked if your blog is hard to navigate.

I wrote a giant post in Phil’s comments about the drive-by and it gotten eaten by a 404 monster. *sniffle* I will try a dramatic re-creation here:

• Cartoons = Bad
  • I disagree! I far prefer to have a “face” to connect to a blog rather than a generic image. In instances where the blogger does not wish to show his or her face to the world, what’s wrong with an avatar? Besides, I think the ‘toon versions of Chatty and myself are pretty darn sexy!
• Comments Placement
  • I’m with them there, Phil. The comment link does need to be at the bottom of the post. We want to comment after reading the awesome post!
• RSS buttons
  • I think this is an easy fix – why not change the color of the bar to dark blue so the orange pops out more?
• Color Scheme
  • I love your color scheme! It’s very soothing and calming and lets me focus on the content rather than “bling” trying to draw my eyes elsewhere.
• Overall
  • The most important thing, Phil? You have great content. That’s what’s going to keep us coming back. That’s what’s going to make other bloggers link to you. Keep up the good work, we love ya.

So I’m a little too scared to ask for Men with Pens drive-by at the moment… so I’ll ask my readers – is there anything about Geek’s Dream Girl that you think should be changed or tweaked?