Imagery on your site is hugely important. People pay attention to what’s there so if you have a bad picture it will put people off, so here are a few tips I give out when I am asked about this as I very often am.

 
 
 

Sam Gilbert

Head of Partner
Account Management
UK, South Africa,
Australia and
New Zealand

 
 

sam@datingfactory.com

 
 

(+44) 1278 588 347
(+44) 7904 552 503
(+61) 0280 064 256

 
 

sam.gilbert83

 
 
 
  • It must be relevant – if you have a niche site then make sure your image is actually to do with this niche. For example if you are running a vegetarian niche don’t have people eating steak!
    It also helps to make sure it doesn’t clash with your theme colours.
  • Keep it natural – there is nothing worse than a badly staged photo. If the couple on your site look like they are uncomfortable or don’t seem to be a real couple then people will notice this. And the more natural the environment and the people then the more your prospective member will have trust in your site.

  • Try and avoid pictures of people that look at you. This may sound like a weird thing to say, but hear me out! If someone is looking at you, where do you look? Their eyes right. But this isn’t where they should be staring when on your site, you want them concentrating on registering and drawing their attention to getting them to sign up.

Here’s our very own tutorial video on changing the image on your site to give you a helping hand:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrqnCI_SjzU

If you want to use your own stock image you have bought, remember to keep your invoice! And if you are giving us images to use in a new design we will need copies of these in order to use the images on the site.

One important note on images is to try and keep them as small as you can, but not too small – it’s a balance! A larger image will affect your download speed which could also affect your search engine rankings so be logical about the changes you want to make.

More choice for your niches

As we are always doing what we can to give you the best we can, we have our designers working their fingers to the bone bringing in a range of new templates. Having just released new ones through a selection of our niches I am happy to say we have more on the way so keep your eyes peeled!

Making the most of members for you…

Launched this week is a new feature enabling us to try and get you more revenue out of members visiting your sites! Statistics prove that a user who registers as a free member on your site will pay within the first three days in most cases, so we have put in place a new system to cross register the members who don’t pay to try and get the most out of them and increase your revenue.

So, here’s how it works. After five days we will offer the member the possibility to use an affiliated site without having to register again. If the member chooses to take up a paid membership you will receive a revenue share of 50% for the initial payment and 40% on any recurring or renewal payments.
You can track all cross registered payments in your “Reports” section in your admin. Chose the filter “Traffic Source” then “Traffic as an affiliate” and in filter “Rows by” choose “By campaign”. This will show all your affiliate campaigns, you will know the sales from this feature as they will be named “System cross-selling campaign” followed by the niche.

A new look for our affiliate program

We have given our affiliate program a facelift! It’s now much simpler to use, you can see the available sites by country or by niche with a preview of each site in the program.

Nothing has changed in the reporting section, we just gave it a new, fresh and better look that is much more user friendly. For information on the Affiliate program if you have not yet used the feature, feel free to contact me about it.

You are all amazing!

Thank you all so much for taking the time to nominate Dating Factory for the upcoming iDate awards, I am very proud to say that we have been put forward for two categories thanks to your dedication!

  • BEST DATING SOFTWARE & SAAS PROVIDER
  • MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANY

So now it’s voting time: http://www.idateawards.com/vote-las-vegas-2014.php

It means so much to us to have such supportive partners and your vote means so much to myself and the whole team here at Dating Factory. Voting ends January 3rd 2014 so there is lots of time to get your votes in before then.

Need some help with PPC, SEO or content marketing – then look no further

Numerous times I am asked if I know anyone who can help with these subjects, so I have made it a personal mission to find you all some good and trusted companies to help in areas you might need. Strategy Internet Marketing is a company that Dating Factory know well and have personally worked with. I spoke with them recently about providing my partners with a support network and they are more than happy to be involved. Check them out here http://www.strategyinternetmarketing.co.uk/ and if you think they can help you make sure you mention I sent you as they promised to look after anyone I sent!

This month I’m throwing it back at you……

Every month you get me in your inbox talking at you about a bunch of things I think you would like to hear, but I want to hear from you all too! What do you want to hear from me? Do you have burning topic that you want me to discuss? Or is there something you do that you would like me to share? Let me know!

Domains for sale

I still have a number of people offering domains for sale so let me know if you see anything you’re interested in! I have a list, so if you want to see them all please ask.

www.dating-online.xxx
www.dogloversdating.co.uk
www.datingwebsite.pm
www.dominationdating.co.uk

Upcoming travel dates

I will be travelling on the 4th and 5th of December, but will still be contactable by email.