Creating and Writing a Personal Profile that will Bring Responses!

Your success of meeting people online is mostly dependent on your ability to capture the interest and imagination of others through the words you write and photos you post. While the task of writing a good online profile may be daunting for many people, it just takes a little time, effort, and know-how. You just need to know some tricks of the trade to get noticed by the people you want, while weeding out those that don't interest you. In person or on the telephone you can more easily get a feel for what another person is like and pick up on various clues as to their personality from their voice and body language. But online the only thing you have to work with and rely on are words and photos. So creating a good profile really is vital for success.

Questions, questions ???
During the sign up process you will be provided with a brief series of questions and options that are required in creating a basic profile to get you started online. Once you have created a basic profile and login to your account, go to "My Profile" where you will find "edit" buttons for various sections, some of which provides many extra optional questions and field options which enables you to provide additional info in your profile. We have created a variety of field topics that have selectable options to make creating an interesting profile as easy as possible. You don't have to select or fill in all of the optional fields, take your time and choose the ones you feel the most comfortable with, but we recommend filling in as many as possible so your profile appears interesting. You can edit your profile at anytime and at your leisure when you have had time to think about what you want to say or portray about yourself, and it's worth it to invest the time and effort into getting it right. The more info you supply in your profile, the more interesting your profile will appear to others.

Basic advice and tips
Browse other ads or profiles, either on this site or other sites. Those ads and profiles we admire that make the person appear interesting and fun? The chances are they were actually the result of someone's hard work. Use a word processor for your work, such as notepad or MS Word, then cut and paste some of the info from the ads that you find appealing and may pertain to your traits. This builds a document which you can edit and use to create your own unique profile, and also gives you a chance to use a spell/grammar checker to avoid mistakes, you certainly don't want to give the impression that you're uneducated. Don't expect to get it perfect the first time. Be prepared to tweak your profile from time to time as you go along, change your info until you're getting good matches from people who fit your requirements. Most importantly, get advice from someone else whose judgement you trust. Ask them what the profile says to them as opposed to whether it describes you or not. Preferably use someone who doesn't know you really well, as people who know you well will have their judgement influenced by their knowledge of you and they'll see what they want to see, not what's there. Listen to advice, you don't have to act on it or change anything, just note it for the future, in case you want to alter your profile later on.

Choosing a username
Your username says a lot about you - (wildgirl) or (shyguy) will generate assumptions in people. Either use a username which is significant and says something about you (e.g. rodeogirl), or one which is anonymous, such as linda2435. Resist temptation to refer to significant numbers such as age, phone numbers, date of birth etc, this gives unnecessary personal information, which you should avoid.

Be appropriate in length
When writing about yourself and what you're seeking, don't turn it into a novel, if it's too lengthy it can put some readers off and they may not bother to finish it. On the other hand, if it's too short they may not see the full picture and be tempted, so aim for a happy medium. However, a short description in your About Me section is better than having nothing. If your not good at writing about yourself, start with something short and brief, and build on it over time.

A picture is like a thousand words!
Posting photos in your profile greatly increases your prospects. Many people simply don't respond to profiles without one, would you? Try posting as many photos as possible. Don't post 1 photo of yourself and 10 of your horse, it's ok to post a few photos of your horse but just keep in mind that people aren't interested in meeting or dating your horse. Be open and post some photos of yourself. Don't worry that someone you know might see them, after all, the only way they would see them is if they are also looking for someone online! Besides our site isn't just a singles dating site, we are technically a community for country minded folks where many people come to simply hang out, make new friends and chat with other country minded folks that share their interests in horses and/or the country lifestyle.

Demonstrate, don't describe
Many profiles are lists of adjectives, such as I'm funny, bright, happy, interesting, etc, etc. Prove it! Let things show through in the way you write the profile, instead of listing them. A positive, cheerful profile will show you're a cheerful happy person. A funny profile will say more about your sense of humor than just stating "I have a good sense of humor". If you like films, maybe briefly mention something about your two favorites - and why they are. This will tell people much more about you than just saying "I love movies".

The golden rule is to talk about who you are, not just how you look and what you do.

Be positive
Avoid anything negative in your profile unless it's something that's a real deal-breaker for you. For example, if you passionately hate cats to the extent that you couldn't date someone with one, it's sensible to mention it. If there are moral, religious or social factors which are important to you and would be deal-breakers in deciding whether to meet someone or not, make sure you mention them - but positively. It will help you to avoid the situation of investing the time getting to know someone, only to discover some key incompatibilities later.

Always be positive about yourself. Resist making negative statements like "I've been burnt before", "wouldn't call myself beautiful", or "I'm skeptical if meeting someone online will workout but here goes ...", avoid ranting or listing petty things that annoys you about the opposite sex, these types of things do you no favors at all. Try saying positive things more like ... "I consider myself to be romantic and sexy", "I'm very light hearted and/or an easy going laid back person", "I'm a very active energetic person who likes to be on the go and/or is spontaneous", "I'm open to or looking forward to the opportunity of making some new friends and possibly even more with the right person".

Someone who's browsing through profiles is looking to add some fun and positive energy to their life. Chances are they won't be attracted to a hard luck story of how difficult life has been, or things you despise about the opposite sex. Leave your baggage and past hurts at the door, not everyone is the same as that person in your past. Meeting new people is all about the future and you'll do better to look forward rather than back. Posting a profile is meant to be a starting point for getting to know new and interesting people. As fascinating as our pasts are to ourselves, others rarely find them as interesting as who we are and what we're seeking today, and for the future.

Try to present yourself in a positive, upbeat manner, which can be achieved by simply mentioning some qualities about your personality, your interests and what you're seeking. Just be careful not to over-sell yourself where you sound too good to be true.

Honesty really is the best policy, within reason!
Be honest; it pays off in the long run. It may be very tempting to state a white lie about your age (after all, you LOOK younger), your weight (it'll be gone soon) or habits (casual drinker) yet you have a drink almost every day, just remember people are making choices based on what you say, and will only feel let down when they discover the truth.

The exception is with quantity of information, not quality. There's no point in being totally honest and putting people off by telling them every single thing. Become a master of understatement, instead of saying I love books, and spend every weekend shopping in markets to add to my collection of over 2000 books, which may sound odd to someone who doesn't get to know you, just say I love books and enjoy collecting them. Be honest about things that people might find negative but understate them, don't hide them.

One of the most tricky issues can be weight, and if you're an ample body size, you need to be reasonably honest about it. Not only will it disappoint them when they meet you if you've lied, but your own confidence will plummet if you see disappointment on their face or hear it in their voice. Use the Honest Understatement, say something like I'm large/ample/voluptuous/curvy, etc. You don't need to tell them your exact weight and size, and if they need to ask that, they probably aren't a good match anyway. Besides, weight can be deceiving, it depends on a lot of factors, such as height and on an individual's body type and how it's distributed. Keep in mind that not all men are seeking the skinny table dancer types or arm candy, the fact is many mature men actually prefer curvy women.

Understand the impact of your choices
Avoid coming across as sounding too demanding or shallow. What you choose to say will eliminate people who feel they don't match or measure up. For example if you say I prefer tall dark and handsome men, you are instantly ruling out 75% of the male population, and if you also include that they must be financially secure as well, you've just reduced your odds by ruling out 90% of the male population, and the same goes if you're a male and state your looking for someone who resembles Shania Twain or Jennifer Lopez. Anyone feeling they don't fit that description will automatically assume it will be a waste of their time to even try pursuing you. If your list of demands of what you're looking for appears too stringent you could land up ruling out the entire male or female population. So exercise caution when describing what you're looking for as it can have a huge impact on the reader and how many responses you will receive. If you only want professional re-spondees, choose your words carefully and accordingly. If you want a casual dating partner rather than a life partner or you only want to make some new friends, state this in your profile to avoid giving the wrong impression and getting responses from members that have other intentions.

By having a stringent or lengthy list of demands of what you want and are looking for will not only reduce and eliminate many potential candidates, it can give the impression to many readers that you might be shallow, over demanding, hard to please and potentially difficult to get along with.

On the same token, it's ok and a good idea to be clear on few things that are important to you such as, "Age Range", "If your only interested in meeting or dating locally or within specified Distance", "Religious Beliefs" "Drinking and Smoking Habits" and maybe the most important ... "Interests or Hobbies", things may not go too far if you love horses and country music and you hook up with someone who only likes heavy metal music and hates horses. Those that play together are more apt to stay together!

Write a Blog
Your account includes a blog feature that allows you to create, write and manage personal blogs. Don't ignore this powerful tool - writing blogs expands on your profile and can drastically increase the odds of you being noticed on the site, and is a great way to make new friends and for people to get to know you better. Blogs allows you to write articles about any topic or interest you wish, and it can be as short or lengthy as you want. You can write an article expressing your opinions about a topic, describing your passions or interests, or it could be used to get feedback what others think about an issue or topic. Post comments in other member's blogs - this will also increase your profile awareness on the site. The more involved you are on the site, the more you will be noticed! People are naturally drawn to those that appear popular, supportive and helpful.

One final note - don't let writing the perfect profile delay you from getting yourself online! That's called putting it off or procrastination. Once you're happy with a first draft, get it out there and see what results you get, you can always edit and amend your profile at anytime. It often takes months of tweaking here and there to get a great profile that truly reflects who you are and produces the results you want.

Good Luck!

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