I remember my first month on Match. I must have sent a hundred emails that month and I didn’t get a single response.

I seriously considered giving up.

I assumed I wasn’t getting any responses based on my pictures.

Finally on the last day of my subscription, I got an email from a chick named “EverClearQueen,” or something like that.

I ended up getting her number and we talked a few times but never met up.

That one email was enough to get me to sign up for another month on Match.

Fast forward a few years.

I had gotten a lot better at writing emails and I figured out a lot of little nuances that made a big difference in terms of getting a lot of responses from women.

Being a fanatical tester I decided to try the same pictures I had when I first got on Match, just to see what would happen.

I ended up getting about the same number of responses as I did when I had better pictures.

I already knew it at the time, but I realized even more how effective a good profile and emails can be at getting you more responses.

Am I saying that your profile pictures don’t matter?

Not exactly.

What my little test demonstrated was that your emails and wording in your profile on dating sites can be a lot more important than your pictures; however, your pictures are still important.

Having good pictures can make it easier for you to meet women. And having good pictures isn’t only about being good-looking.

Looks matter, but only to a certain point. If you’re good-looking, that can certainly help you, but if your emails and profile suck, your responses are going to suck too unless you’re a model.

The other side of that coin is if you have a good profile and emails, you can still get a lot of responses even if your pictures aren’t great.

I Recommend Using The One-Two Combo

I recommend using a one-two combo: have good pictures and have great emails.

I know this can sound very intimidating at first, especially if you’re having trouble just writing a few emails, but you don’t have to do everything in one night.

Give yourself some time to incrementally improve your profile and your emails.

Right now though, we’re talking about pictures, so I want to give you a few tips to make your pictures better.

Let’s get something straight right now. Regardless of what you look like, you can take some great and interesting pictures that women respond to.

If you have no idea what kind of pictures are interesting, look at other profiles. Look at women’s profiles to find out what kind of pictures they put in their profile.

Look at some guys’ profiles too. You’ll get some good ideas from the competition.

Many women have pictures with their friends, of them playing sports, traveling, and pictures of them dressed up.

If you just started there, you’d be safe, but safe can be boring.

I recommend you have some of those types of pictures to show a woman that the two of you have things in common, but go further than that.

Where To Start

A simple tip I learned from a girl is to leave your camera in your car. You’d be surprised how many interesting pictures you’ll end up taking when you always have a camera available.

You don’t have to be a pro to take great pictures. Here are a couple websites that have some great tips on taking better pictures:

• http://www.ehow.com/how_5061654_good-pictures-people.html
• http://www.wikihow.com/Take-Better-Photographs

Just last month the people at OkCupid, a free dating site, published an article about the four big myths of profile pictures. You can read the full article at http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2010/01/20/the-4-big-myths-of-profile-pictures/.

They claim the best pictures for guys are those where you look away from the camera without smiling, and pictures with an animal.

I can vouch for having a picture with an animal. Women constantly ask me about my dog.

So there you have it. I just gave you some great resources for taking great pictures.

As always, get started on this information right now. Don’t put it off.

Until next time,

Brandon Duran

This entry was posted on February 10, 2010 at 9:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.