|
Inside The Online Dating Industry
by Joe Tracy,
publisher of Online Dating Magazine
How Free Online
Dating Services Make a Profit
Perhaps you’ve visited a free online dating
service like PlentyOfFish.com or Okcupid.com and have
wondered, how does a free service (which has huge server
fees when thousands of people sign up) turn a profit?
If they are paying a few thousand a month in various
fees what in the world could posses them into thinking
offering online dating is smart?
You will find the answers and facts to be both surprising
and enlightening.
According to published reports, PlentyOfFish.com makes
$10,000 a day from Google Adsense,
those text ads that you see on many sites, including
this one. You can
do the calculations… $300,000 income minus a
few thousand for server fees, staff, and maintenance
= a huge monthly paycheck (not quite as huge after
taxes).
But that’s
not all. Because PlentyOfFish.com is a free online
dating
service,
it
regularly attracts tens of thousands of people not
willing to invest $49 a month to find “true love” on
a paid online dating service that also forces visitors
to endure a lot of ads, including popup ones (big mistake
for online dating services).
So not only is PlentyOfFish.com profiting from Google
Adsense, but it is also building a massive database
of online daters – hundreds of thousands. And
when you have a database that huge, you start to attract
attention from the bigger online dating services who
covet those users. PlentyOfFish.com could end up selling
its business for millions of dollars!
Not too bad for
a free online dating service, huh?
There’s also something else interesting that
comes into play here. Some of these sites are downright… um… how
do I say this… ugly! And some Web marketers are
now theorizing that being an ugly site brings them
more money because people click on an ad or Adsense
link
in order to leave the site, thus bringing the site
owners more income. It’s unfortunate, but we
may find more and more ugly sites popping up as people
seek to fatten their pocketbook.
Over the past several weeks we’ve discussed
starting an online dating service, but that discussion
has been targeted at sites looking to charge for subscriptions.
Now we’ve taken a look at a reason to reconsider
your business model because free online dating services
can make big money too! It's a matter of having the
right plan at the right time with the right people.
Note
This
month's editorial reads quite a bit like
an Inside
the Online Dating Industry column, therefore
you may want to check
it out. The editorial examines
the impact of Spark Networks decision to change ChristianMingle.com
to Relationships.com.
Tip of the Week
Last week's tip was about regularly publishing press
releases to help increase your traffic and recognition.
We also talked about how links were a vital aspects
of Web marketing. This week we'll take the next step
in the importance of links by discussing extended text
ad advertising.
Tip #7: Extended Text Link Advertising
Most of the tips I share are things you can do for
virtually free to help drive traffic to your Website
or build your user database. This week, however, I'm
going to discuss an important element of text ad advertising
and tell you why buying one month will do virtually
nothing for your search engine rankings.
For a text ad to help you, the site you purchase the
ad on should have the same theme as your site (online
dating), be reputable, and have a decent Google Page
Rank (5 or higher). When you've identified these sites,
it's a good idea to purchase a campaign that is multiple
months and make sure the text ad links directly to
your front page. The reason is because the purpose
of your campaign is three-fold:
1) Bring more traffic.
2) Slightly help your search engine rankings (through
search engines counting the link as one pointing to
your site through a reputable same-themed site).
3) Increase site branding and recognition.
In a short campaign
(like one month), you lose the benefits of #2 and #3.
You lose the benefit of #2 because
some of the most important search engines now place
a "delay" on officially counting links back to your
Website. They do this to try and stop people from "buying"
their way to the top of search engines. When the delay
(several months) ends, if your link still isn't there
then it isn't counted. In addition, you lose the benefit
of #3 because if you are not constantly keeping your
name in front of a site's visitors, then they won't
visit or recognize you. And positive recognition is
a vital aspect of branding. Ad studies show that it
takes a certain number of ad impressions before a user
will consider taking action. Thus you need to always
find ways of keeping your name in front of people.
So those who only do one month campaigns
and stop
get very little
benefit
from
their
campaign.
Joe Tracy is
publisher of Online Dating Magazine and is often quoted
by the media in relation to online dating topics. His Inside
the Online Dating Industry column is published every
Friday.
> Get $79 Off a 3 Month Subscription to PerfectMatch.com!
 <
Offer only available via the above link. Sign up and save!
All
Online Dating Magazine content, including the content on this page,
is ©
copyright by Online Dating Magazine and may
not be
republished or reused in any form. You do have
full permission to link to this article.
Do you agree or disagree with this
article? Have
more to add? Submit a Letter
to the Editor today.
|
