Often, setting up an online dating profile is a painstaking process. You suffer over every choice: which photos make your life look adventurous, how to answer questions in a way that shows you're witty and fun, and which music and tv shows really describe your personality. But once you've finished setting up your profile, you forget it. Because who wants to go through the trouble again?
Well, as hard as it is to think up even more witty things to say, it's totally worth it to update your online dating profiles. And if you're serious about finding a relationship (or hookups) on dating apps, then you should update frequently. Julie Spira, an online dating coach, suggests tweaking your profiles at least once a week.
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Before you freak out (once a week, really?!), know that you don't have to put much effort into those weekly updates. Simply changing the order of your photos or switching around the placement of sentences on your already-written profile will help to keep you relevant, Spira says. "Having a revised profile helps you stay active and more visible on the site, and can capture the attention of someone who might have swiped left, or taken a pass the first time around," she says. Even switching your main profile photo from one where you're skydiving to one where you're at a concert could result in more matches, simply because more people might be interested in the band you went to see and want to talk to you about it.
But more than just catching the eye of someone who might have passed you by before, making tiny updates might also boost your position on dating apps. Many online dating services favor people who are active on the site, Spira says. So updating your profiles can give you an advantage. "I’ve found that just a slight tweak in words can help a profile appear more often with the way that dating site algorithms work," she says. While dating sites never really explain how their software chooses which profiles are displayed to which users, Spira says that she's seen profiles get more activity if something small, like a few words in the bio or the placement of sentences is changed. So, she suggests switching words you've already used with synonyms or moving your intro sentence deeper into the profile. It might just help your profile be seen by more eyes, so why not try?
Yet, there's no real way to know if small changes like that make a huge difference. So, if a once-a-week update feels like too much for you, you can get away with less frequent changes, says Carmelia Ray, celebrity matchmaker and online dating expert. Just make sure you're at least updating with the seasons. You don't want photos of you sitting on the beach when it's the middle of winter in real-time, she says, because that will make it look like your profile is old and might be a turn-off to potential matches.
In addition to making sure your profile photos look current, you should tweak your profile whenever you feel that you're not getting the response you want."When you mix up your photos and you edit your bio, you can test what really works for you," Ray says. Changing your photos or changing what you say in your bio could result in more matches. So, instead of creating a profile and then never thinking about it again, you should be making changes until you find something that works for you.