Whether you’re new to online dating or you’ve been at it for awhile, there are some common practices you should follow to ensure you’re making the best impression. You may not know where to start or you might just not be getting the responses you’d like, so starting out strong or even trying a new approach may help you meet the woman you’ve been looking for.

Honesty Is the Best Policy

Meeting people online may seem like a good opportunity to reinvent yourself and maybe falsify a few aspects of your life to seem more interesting since the person on the other end can’t see you. While fudging the truth might make you feel more confident and draw more online attention to yourself, it can come back to bite you if you ever want to meet the woman you’ve been talking to or start a serious relationship.

Using misleading photos or claiming to have an important job title with a large salary could be very awkward to try explaining when you go out on your first date and she realizes you aren’t who you say you are. Your best bet is to be yourself and make a strong connection with someone who wants to meet the real you.

Honesty regarding your expectations is very important as well. You can save a lot of heartache and hurt feelings for both parties if you’re clear about your thoughts on dating a single parent, a divorcee, or someone who smokes or drinks. You don’t need to make a big red warning sign to post at the front of your profile, but gently putting your requirements out there will weed out the people you just won’t be compatible with.

Quality over Quantity

Rather than sending out a mass e-mail to every woman you find attractive, take the time to read through their profiles and determine first if you think they’d be a good match for you. If so, send a personal message and add some tidbits in there that show you’ve read her profile and have taken a sincere interest. Sending her something that is easy to respond too, for example asking her questions regarding something you’ve seen in her profile, could make a response more likely.

If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again

With online dating, you’re not always going to get a positive response from someone you message. Don’t let interactions like this discourage you. The best approach is to show your interest, but avoid sending e-mail after e-mail if she doesn’t reply back. The beauty of online dating is that the possibilities are endless, so while one woman may not be interested, you have the opportunity to meet many more who may be.

For those who have little dating experience both online and offline, using a dating site can be a much easier approach to finding that special someone. Online dating removes the first question that comes with dating which is “Where do I go to meet someone?” Setting up an online profile and putting yourself out there is your first step through the door to that big online singles bar known as internet dating.

Deciding on a Site

With so many online dating sites out there, it’s important to choose the one that will be right for you. Some sites are free and some you pay for. Pay sites may weed out the less serious online daters but you may prefer a free site if you aren’t sure what you’re looking for yet. Every different site will offer their own set of dating tools, e-mail servers, and messaging services, so browsing through a few before signing up for anything will give you the opportunity to get started on a site that suits you best.

Some niche sites cater to specific interests you might share. These sites could be religion specific or focus mainly on those looking to get married. The more popular sites will generally have more members you can browse through, but if you are looking for a specific type of woman, the smaller sites may have a more particular group of members.

Creating Your Profile

Setting up a thorough profile is a must. Leaving everything blank and not including a picture will give the message that you either aren’t interested enough in the dating process to invest some time into your profile or that you’re trying to hide something.

Fill out what you can on your profile, without being painfully long-winded, and post a few recent, well-lit photos of yourself. The women you message will want to have an idea about who you are before writing back, and if you want to receive any messages, you’ll have to give them a reason to initiate contact.

Meeting the Right Woman

Once you’ve chosen a good screen name that suits you and you’ve created a confident yet modest profile for yourself you’ll be ready to start looking for that special someone. Be sure to read her profile before sending her a message and keep your messages short, polite, and personal. Most women can tell when you’ve created a generic message that you send out to every profile you come across so mention something you liked about her profile or ask her some questions about herself.

You may not always get a response back, so give her some time to respond. Sending one more e-mail a week later is alright if you’re particularly taken by someone, but there’s no sense in spamming anyone who isn’t interested. If you still don’t hear back, accept that she isn’t the one for you and try making a connection with someone else.