The traditional and casual dating audiences have gradually come closer together as many sites that are considered as being casual are accepted into the mainstream. Mostly because this is a better fit for real life and realists have concluded that we do not go out actively looking for a husband or wife as soon as we turn 21.
What we really want is to continue having fun with our friends and at the same time to make new friends and have a lot of fun along the way.
Of course this doesn’t mean that there is no room for traditional dating sites.. actually quite the opposite. They compliment each other very well and because of this reason it could actually be worthwhile creating both a traditional and a casual dating site and use the opportunity to cross promote your sites.
It is generally well known that casual dating sites can provide a higher income, mostly because they can convert better and the Average Revenue Per User can be higher. However, this doesn’t always need to be the case and it is very much dependent upon your source of traffic.
My advice would be to launch both a traditional and casual dating site and cross market them to get increased ARPU. What have you got to lose?
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Consolidation is the key
As you may have read, EasyDate has just acquired the online dating portfolio of Allegran, which was property of Associated Northcliffe Digital. This strategic move has now rocketed our growth and gives us a very substantial market share in the UK.
It is always worth looking at acquisitions as an excellent way of accelerating your growth. Even if you are a smaller company, looking to grow rapidly, there are always acquisition opportunities out there. It is just a matter of finding them or making sure they find you.
Our most recent acquisition brings the popular LoopyLove, GirlsDateforFree, QuickFlirt, MatureDating.co.uk and DatingforParents into our portfolio.
It is always worth looking at acquisitions as an excellent way of accelerating your growth. Even if you are a smaller company, looking to grow rapidly, there are always acquisition opportunities out there. It is just a matter of finding them or making sure they find you.
Our most recent acquisition brings the popular LoopyLove, GirlsDateforFree, QuickFlirt, MatureDating.co.uk and DatingforParents into our portfolio.
Friday, 26 March 2010
Size doesn’t matter… well most of the time
One of the greatest opportunities you have in the online dating world is the possibility of expanding your service internationally. In many cases this can be a very lucrative venture, particularly if you are able to fill a niche that either doesn’t already exist or is poorly represented in the country you are entering.
Even a small dating site within a specific niche can be very lucrative. So size doesn’t necessarily matter. It can be all about quality instead of quantity. Even just by expanding to the English speaking world you will open up a wealth of new opportunities without the need to concern yourself with language issues or other barriers of entry.
USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland are all very open to online dating and growing almost as well as Europe is. So there are a lot of opportunities to explore niches in these countries.
The opportunities are there. Take them now while the market is still strong.
Even a small dating site within a specific niche can be very lucrative. So size doesn’t necessarily matter. It can be all about quality instead of quantity. Even just by expanding to the English speaking world you will open up a wealth of new opportunities without the need to concern yourself with language issues or other barriers of entry.
USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland are all very open to online dating and growing almost as well as Europe is. So there are a lot of opportunities to explore niches in these countries.
The opportunities are there. Take them now while the market is still strong.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Invest in a good domain
Buying a domain name is an investment that will rarely lose you money. Of course there are exceptions to this, but in general a good domain name will hold its value quite well and sometimes even grow in value, particularly if you have built a site which has attracted a reasonable amount of traffic.
There are a number of factors that will determine whether a domain name is of any value or whether it will work well for you. So, it is important to determine which of these factors are of importance to you and your site project.
You may decide that a good keyword domain will limit your marketing spend as it will attract organic traffic. This approach doesn’t suit everyone.
How many people would use google if it was called mostrelevantsearchengine.com? OK, so maybe not such a good example. But you get the idea. Sometimes building a brand is your goal and so a memorable brand name will carry much more value. Sites such as Facebook.com, Bebo.com, Twitter.com are all good examples of branded sites whose names do not necessarily describe their purpose, but who have attracted such high volumes of traffic that the domains themselves probably hold a very high price tag.
By building volume of traffic to your domain you also increase the value of similar domains, misspellings and country specific domains. This is mostly because they will pick up some traffic from users seeking out your service. So, it is worthwhile buying up all possible variations to avoid paying a premium further down the line. This is particularly relevant if you are building up a brand.
A dating site can run pretty well on a keyword domain if you can manage to get a reasonable organic search placement. This is particularly relevant to niche dating sites. But, really, there is no replacement for a good memorable brand.
Check out the domain auctions at http://www.buydomains.com and www.sedo.com.
There are a number of factors that will determine whether a domain name is of any value or whether it will work well for you. So, it is important to determine which of these factors are of importance to you and your site project.
You may decide that a good keyword domain will limit your marketing spend as it will attract organic traffic. This approach doesn’t suit everyone.
How many people would use google if it was called mostrelevantsearchengine.com? OK, so maybe not such a good example. But you get the idea. Sometimes building a brand is your goal and so a memorable brand name will carry much more value. Sites such as Facebook.com, Bebo.com, Twitter.com are all good examples of branded sites whose names do not necessarily describe their purpose, but who have attracted such high volumes of traffic that the domains themselves probably hold a very high price tag.
By building volume of traffic to your domain you also increase the value of similar domains, misspellings and country specific domains. This is mostly because they will pick up some traffic from users seeking out your service. So, it is worthwhile buying up all possible variations to avoid paying a premium further down the line. This is particularly relevant if you are building up a brand.
A dating site can run pretty well on a keyword domain if you can manage to get a reasonable organic search placement. This is particularly relevant to niche dating sites. But, really, there is no replacement for a good memorable brand.
Check out the domain auctions at http://www.buydomains.com and www.sedo.com.
Monday, 8 March 2010
Do your research
There is no better way to find out about an industry than to speak to the people already working within it.
The online dating industry has regular events across the world where you will get a chance to hear from industry experts and leaders and get some insight into current trends and future developments.
There are also a few dating industry blogs that can give a bit of insight or at the very least keep you informed of company’s activity in this sector. Of course you will also read my blog regularly, which I hope will provide some useful info.
So what sort of research should you be doing?
You can find out from others within the industry which geographic targeting you should be doing or which niches are performing well. You may be able to identify a gap for yourself in a specific city or country. It is also good to speak to others and find out what hasn’t worked well for them. Learning from the mistakes of others can save you a lot of pain. It is also good just to find out which companies are doing well as this will show you the business models and platforms that are able to perform in the current climate.
All the info you need is out there. It’s just a matter of gathering it together.
You can always give our white label team a call and they will be able to help with some of your research.
The online dating industry has regular events across the world where you will get a chance to hear from industry experts and leaders and get some insight into current trends and future developments.
There are also a few dating industry blogs that can give a bit of insight or at the very least keep you informed of company’s activity in this sector. Of course you will also read my blog regularly, which I hope will provide some useful info.
So what sort of research should you be doing?
You can find out from others within the industry which geographic targeting you should be doing or which niches are performing well. You may be able to identify a gap for yourself in a specific city or country. It is also good to speak to others and find out what hasn’t worked well for them. Learning from the mistakes of others can save you a lot of pain. It is also good just to find out which companies are doing well as this will show you the business models and platforms that are able to perform in the current climate.
All the info you need is out there. It’s just a matter of gathering it together.
You can always give our white label team a call and they will be able to help with some of your research.
Friday, 26 February 2010
Looking forward...
I suppose we are in a very fortunate position to have a growing company which is quite simply going from strength to strength, particularly in the current economic climate. This is no accident. We identified an industry with huge growth potential and placed all our efforts into growing our market share and creating one of the most innovative dating software platforms currently available.
Other industries that may be suffering slightly at the moment could really start to bolster their finances by adding some vertical sites to their portfolio including dating sites. This is particularly true if they have an existing online audience which isn’t really monetised.
The dating industry still has so much mileage and will grow well into the next decade and will evolve and re-invent itself as often as it needs to in order to survive.
And that is why NOW is the perfect time to get into this industry. Don’t wait for the day that will never come. Today is the first day of the future.
On another note...
It always amuses me to read the news from our competitors when they announce their ‘latest’ features and improvements and I realise that these features have been ‘standard’ inclusions on our platform since time began. I even read from one competitor that they now ‘validate’ email addresses. One has to worry about the quality of a company’s database if they have been accepting memberships without ‘validating’ email addresses for so long.
Good to see these companies learning though and running wildly to keep up with the leaders.
Other industries that may be suffering slightly at the moment could really start to bolster their finances by adding some vertical sites to their portfolio including dating sites. This is particularly true if they have an existing online audience which isn’t really monetised.
The dating industry still has so much mileage and will grow well into the next decade and will evolve and re-invent itself as often as it needs to in order to survive.
And that is why NOW is the perfect time to get into this industry. Don’t wait for the day that will never come. Today is the first day of the future.
On another note...
It always amuses me to read the news from our competitors when they announce their ‘latest’ features and improvements and I realise that these features have been ‘standard’ inclusions on our platform since time began. I even read from one competitor that they now ‘validate’ email addresses. One has to worry about the quality of a company’s database if they have been accepting memberships without ‘validating’ email addresses for so long.
Good to see these companies learning though and running wildly to keep up with the leaders.
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
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