How to Run and Profit From a Niche Dating Site

Health, wealth, and relationships are the three most profitable areas of online business to make money on.  Dating sites are one aspect of these incredibly profitable niches.  Statistics have shown that the use of dating sites has been on the rise with around four billion dollars being spent on online dating sites in 2010 and about 17% of couples that have married having met on online dating sites and far more than that meeting and dating.  How do you get your piece of this rather lucrative pie?  Just like any  business, by going into niche areas and running a niche dating site.

A niche dating site will be a dating site that focuses on one aspect of the relationship world.  Instead of trying to challenge big sites like Match.com, aim for smaller sections of the human race such as gay dating, lesbian dating, Hispanic dating, young adult dating (consenting age of course!) or people looking for rich spouses.  You can go with even narrower niches by focusing on hobby’s such as pets, gaming, video games, movies, and so on.  There are dozens, hundreds of niches to choose from-it’s mostly a matter of comfort level and your own expertise.  Remember, the more you know about your niche, the more you will able to share in your articles and the more attention you will attract.  In dating sites (or any social sites really), this kind of passion is important because it is what binds people together even over vast differences and if the webmaster doesn’t really care, it shows through in the site.

Once you’ve figured out your target audience, you then treat your niche dating site as you would treat any business site.  Get notice from search engines by writing (or commissioning) keyword rich articles related to your topic and submitting them to your own website and to article directories.  Make sure your site is user friendly and has fun little activities such as polls and of course well regulated forums (it’s worth it in this case to hire a moderator or two in order to make certain that forums are kept spam free and tidy).

Profits from your niche dating site will come from a few sources.  You can do AdSense or text ads on your site if you wish in order to build up your starter income and then phase them out (or keep them) and start with membership fees to use the forums and use your site as a place to hook up with others and possibly meet them.  You can also make profits on things like e-books on relationships if you’re interested in that kind of thing, but the bulk of your profits will likely come from membership subscriptions.  Make sure that you have a very secure check out system and that you can accept payment from both credit cards and PayPal (and even bank accounts if you can find secure software for it).  Many people are leery about giving out their credit card information, but they are perfectly happy to use PayPal, so it’s a good idea to hit both sources of money.  Take a look at big sites to get an idea of how they do things in order to structure your own fees properly.

Niche dating sites are a great way to make good income and help people meet and fall in love, but only if it is done properly.  Choose a niche you yourself are interested in and then market it like you would any other site, though with more emphasis on meeting and socializing than on any product.  Structure your membership fees to be as secure as possible as well as user friendly and stay competitive.  Finally, remember to keep your website friendly, but safe so that people will feel secure coming to your site to socialize.  By doing these things and adding your own spin to them, you should be able to make good money from your niche dating site.