How to Set Up a Free Dating Website
- 1). Research the competition. Investigate the features of the most popular online dating sites. Ask yourself what features are successful, what design elements are attractive and what population segments seem to be underrepresented. Use this information to gauge the direction in which you want to take your free dating website.
- 2). Brainstorm. Draw on the information you gathered during the research phase to decide on the logistics of your free dating website. Choose your dating site's name, which should be descriptive yet easy to remember.
- 3). Register your domain name and choose a web host. Your domain name is essentially your dating website's Internet address, and your web host is a service that stores your site's pages on its server. Sites like GoDaddy.com and Yahoo.com offer inexpensive registration fees and web hosting, and often provide a multitude of add-on services.
- 4). Design your free dating website. You can use some of the free software available online, such as PersonalWebKit, Web Studio 4.0 or Homestead, or invest in a product like Dreamweaver. When designing your site, consider the color scheme, the layout, the copy, navigation and site mapping. Keep your site user-friendly and easy to navigate.
- 5). Test your online dating website. Ensure that your site is easy to use, navigable and in good working order. Enlist the help of friends or family members and have them perform a task. For example, ask your roommate to upload his photo and ask your sister to create her dating profile. This step will allow you to see what areas of your site need improvement.
- 6). Advertise. No one will come to your site without knowing about it. One way to ensure you reach your target audience is to submit your free dating website to search engines, including Google.com, Yahoo.com and Ask.com.
- 7). Go live. Upload your free dating website to your web host; this is often done using an FTP tool provided by your web host. Now sit back and watch as people discover your site and start connecting with each other.
