Dating services thrive or crumble based on how they appeal to their users. As a dating site developer, you have many steps you can take before your site even launches to make it a sanctuary for singles looking for love. The more effort you put into the user experience during the early stages of your site’s development, the more people will love it when you launch. Whether you have an existing website or you’re looking to start a new one, adding these elements will make it more attractive to your future users.
1. Create Extensive Matchmaking Capabilities
People come to dating sites so they can avoid leaving their romance up to chance. The entire premise of a dating service is to offer some way of finding a date who has exactly what you’re looking for and nothing that is deal-breaking. As such, a great dating service needs to offer users the ability to seek out the type of people that would be best for them. Looking at the exemplary matching services of Locals.dating, it’s easy to see how more options for searching can make your site more attractive to new users. The site allows local single people to look for individuals based on their location, gender, and many other characteristics. Your goal should be to allow people to get as specific as possible with their searches, but that also means you need to have a biography section with many options from which to choose. Eventually, your site could offer matches based on age, race, location, hair color, smoking or not, alcohol user or not, religion, and many other features. The more you include, the better your site will be.
2. Focus on a Great User Interface
Another important element of modern online dating services is the general user interface. Many of the older generations of dating sites had screens that were crowded with information and impossible to navigate. The days of mashed-together site interface development are gone, and it’s time for you to clean up yours. That means using a lot of white space on your pages so that only the necessary elements stand out. Everything on each page should serve a purpose. Menus should be visible and collapsible. Pictures must tell a story. You might think that creating a minimalist appearance is wasteful, but users will navigate your site easier and love you for it. You should also plan on giving your website a mobile makeover so that it’s easier for people on mobile devices (the majority of them these days) to use.
3. Optimize Page Speed
People do not like to wait, and they hate waiting even more when looking for an online date. As such, you must optimize your page speed so that your users are not stuck waiting for the website to load. Many methods exist for enhancing page speed, such as optimizing your images and enabling compression. You need to consult your site designer to follow up on anything that can give you an edge regarding your page speed.
4. Niche Down
Another valuable piece of information that will increase the chances of getting a positive user experience on a dating site is developing your site in a niche. The world is full of unique people who all want to find a romantic partner. Although you may be tempted to make a generalized dating site that anyone can use, the truth is that niche sites do better because they focus on the needs of those individuals. What is an example of a dating niche? Well, you could look into senior dating, location-based dating, college dating, and more. Professions, culture, race, and religion are all major niches that have a tremendous userbase on standby, looking for the best way to meet singles like them. There is some overlap between niches at times, but occupying the desired niche can help you get more users and become an authority on your topic. You can also combine several complementary niches, such as local dating, as it suits people who crave completely different types of relationships.
5. Offer Your Users Information on a Blog
A significant part of developing a good dating website is providing your users with valuable information. You are bound to have some higher level of understanding about a specific topic based on the sort of site you make. People want information about the type of relationship that they are trying to get involved in. Your blog on the local dating site can help you disseminate information to people who need it, position yourself as an authority, and improve your SEO all in one go. You have plenty of reasons to offer your users information on a blog. You might need to hire a writer to help craft worthy content that will rank, but that is a small price to pay for the backlinks and direct connections between your blog and your service.
6. Place High-End Security on Your Website
Last but not least, your dating site needs to have high-end security that surpasses what the average dating service offers. Website developers are seeing an increased need for better security outcomes as cybercrimes continue to spike. As such, you should start trying to implement cutting-edge security solutions such as AI-enhanced website design that will give you some means to detect, predict, and counter the incursions before they have a major impact on your website. This may make your site more difficult to log into for some people (like if you add two-factor authentication), but it will also create a sense of security that people will pay to experience.
Creating a dating website with a positive user experience is something that every site owner needs to focus on in the years to come. People are no longer satisfied with the copy and pasted dating services that so many companies offer. Instead, they want the opportunity to use a site that is fast, sleek, effective, and specific to their needs and desires as a single individual. You should implement each of these six suggestions into the design of your dating service and witness better growth along with more dedicated users.
