So you’re thinking of joining an online dating site.

You’ve looked them all over: Match.com, eHarmony, Zoosk, and POF.   But before you sit down to write a single word on your profile you need to ask yourself, “Do I understand the online dating rules?”

If you’ve ever dabbled with online dating and had zero success the chances are you’ve been doing everything wrong. Here are some quick pointers for any of you thinking about trying to find the love of your life on the Internet.

1. Think of online dating as a cyber-bar in the sky.  No, there’s no smoke in the room, no drinks being spilt on the floor, and no drunken bums to step over on your way to the bathroom. But when it comes to meeting women, it’s really no different to a bar and let me tell you why…

You still have to be witty and you still have to read the situation. But this time you don’t have to guess what she’s like because you have her profile to look at. Ok, she may not tell you the whole truth on it, but you get some idea of who she is.

Just like in a bar you may hit on a woman one night and find she’s recently met someone. So what do you do?
You don’t email back a week later. You leave it a month and email her again. She might have been with someone else at the time, but now she’s ready to meet someone better. Never completely rule a woman out just because she’s recently met someone. Stay on her radar and you never know when she’ll be free and single again.

2. Don’t take anything personally. Just like when you go out and meet women, you’re going to face rejection. Women are going to ignore you emails, or respond saying “Thanks, but no thanks.” Don’t get mad, don’t send angry messages back, and don’t take it to heart. Rejection is part of the dating game. It’s going to happen. Don’t sweat it.

Most women get a ton of e-mails in their inbox. Most are probably just from pervy guys looking for cyber-sex. They have to sort through them all to find the guys genuinely interested in dating. Your message may slip between the cracks even if it’s clever.   

3. Be persistent but not annoying. This is a tricky one and you need to get the balance right. We said before that if a woman doesn’t respond to your first message then send another one a month later. If she doesn’t respond again try once more, and then leave it at that.

If you really like the look of a woman then don’t give up after one ignored message, but don’t start messaging her every few days because you’ll look like a creepy stalker. You wouldn’t go up to a woman in a bar more than a couple of times if she rejected you, and it’s no different online.

4.  Make sure she’s a regular. Only search for women who’ve been online in the last 24 hours. That way you find the ones that are seriously looking for somebody. You don’t want somebody that gets on every few weeks.  You’re looking for women who visit every day.   

5. Don’t jump in with sex talk. A woman is not going to consider you as a potential partner if the first thing you say to her is, “I want to rip your clothes off and bang your brains out.”

Leave the sex talk until your familiar with a woman, and she’s given you the signal it’s OK to take your “relationship” to that level.

I cover dozens of other online dating rules in my “Online Dating Secrets” program which you can read about HERE.

To stand any real chance of finding a woman online you need to know a bundle of other stuff like how to put together a winning profile, how to write subject lines, what kind of photo to use, how to communicate through email, how to escalate the relationship, and whole lot more, but the tips I’ve given you here should at least get you started.

I’d love to hear your experiences (good and bad) of online