The world of online dating has to be one of the most significant growth industries of the internet; from its initial inception to this day the growth in online dating has been incredible.

From a users point of view it provides a safe place whereby you can conduct as much vetting of a potential suitor as you think is necessary from the comfort of your own home prior to that first initial contact.  It also helps individuals identify particular dating circles that they may find difficult to break into in everyday life from fetish, swingers, BBW, Forces, Lesbian or indeed Gay.

This has all come together to make the world of internet dating HUGE!!!From the point of view of the entrepreneurs amongst us online dating in it’s many guises provides an incredibly consistent stream of revenue, it is not a fashion based product so it won’t be here one day and gone the next.  And the true beauty of online dating agencies is the build up in revenue based on monthly payment fees which can mount up rapidly and form a significant income.  From my personal experience revenue varies greatly by seasons but still remains consistent.

On the flip side there is an enormous responsibility to provide your clients with a quality service both in terms of wanting them to stay a member and ultimately provide that consistent revenue stream and the provision of a safe and feature packed product which will compete in this packed market.

There are a number of ways this can be achieved, the safest and most trouble free is by utilising affiliate or white label dating sites.  These facilities are provided by big internet dating sites such as Dating Central or World Dating Partners, whereby they will provide you with a website packed full of members and managed entirely by them.  You will host the site under your own domain name or a sub domain, you then market the site and any commission received is split between you and the service provider, often these are incredibly generous considering the amount of work you actually do in my opinion anywhere up to 50% is achievable.  This approach is often trouble free with the service provider dealing with charge backs, billing etc.

You could opt simply to advertise the many dating sites that exist by using affiliate sites such as commission Junction, Paid on Results or Affiliate Window the forum at A4Uforum.co.uk provides great hints and tips on these methods of marketing. You simply host banners or text links to advertise the site.  I’ve found this to be a relatively simple way of creating one of the multiple income streams that essentially ensures a diverse income structure and is not entirely dependant on one site to earn all your money, who knows what might happen??

Lastly you could opt to set up your own dating site from a bespoke software package developed by an in-house set of programmers which will be expensive but exactly what you want or purchased one of the many off the shelf packages available from companies such as Emeeting or Abel Dating. The trouble with this method is A. generating a suitably sized database of members in order to attract membership and B. you will have to constantly monitor and provide support to your members, but all revenue generated is yours, which could be very nice.

In summary this quick introduction to online dating sites gives an overview of how they can be used as a member or as a business man/women.  I will be writing detailed articles on all of the subjects covered over time and hopefully provide you with enough information to make an informed decision about how you wish to be a part of this online phenomena.

Best wishes

Steve