Community Software To Start a Social Dating Site
Just like the niche market dating sites, there are niche market social networks. These, like dating, are niche communities designed to bring in people who share a common interest. You could start a social community site or a social dating site or do both and iDateMedia offers these features and functions.
What Is Community Software?
Community software allows anyone to start a community around ones hobbies or interest with software functions that include forums, classifieds, blogs, groups and more and while there are some community sites that charge for memberships, most don’t. That’s because people understand that there are Facebook groups that can do the same but with more and more people jumping ship from Facebook, it makes more sense for them to join niche market community sites and some even have dating components.
Community sites come in all shapes and sizes but the basic function is to bring like minded people together.
Can I Make Money With A Community Site?
The short answer is yes and for those that want to learn how to do it just keep reading! 🙂
First and foremost a community site is not a dating site per se but more of a meeting place for people of like minded people and that community site you should keep it free. Simply because these people come to get information and chat with others who share their interest, unlike a dating site where people come to find a mate.
When running a social community site you should be getting community software that allows you to show ads. You want 4 basic locations for the ads. They are header, footer, left sidebar and right sidebar.
As for the type of ads you want to run you’ll need to do some testing to see what gives you the best CTR (Click Through Rate). That’s the number of clicks you’re getting from the impressions the ads are showing. You can show text ads, image ads or both. Google has stated that a mix of image and text is the better choice in terms of earning the most revenue but you’ll decide based on your reporting or any possible a/b testing.
When running ads on your community site you have a couple options. One of which is to run AdSense, which is a Google product. You get paid every time the ad is shown and when the ad is clicked. You’re going to have people exiting your site so why not get paid for them to leave? Makes sense.
Another option is to sell advertising space on your site. Of course you’ll need a few members to do this. If you’re running a motorcycle community then motorcycle related ads are a plus.
Should I Offer Dating Features?
This is something that you’ll find out as you move along. You’ll be able to determine the users that are on your site. If you’re finding a lot of single people using your site then adding the dating components to it can be a good idea. If you’re finding a lot of people are married people or similar then that option should not be introduced.
If your site is full of married people and single people then maybe start a separate site geared towards those single people and cross-promote it on your community site. There’s no reason not to have multiple sites as the saying always goes that the more sites you have earning revenue the more money you can make.
In closing you can start a community site with the dating software from iDateMedia. This is because we offer these community style features like blogs, groups, classifieds and forums. You can simply turn off the features you don’t want to use. This makes the community software versatile in its usage.