Profile pictures for your online dating profile

In order to have a successful profile, you’re going to need to put up a picture. Actually, you should put up four pictures, but let’s focus on the most important one first.

We cover pictures a lot on this site, and that’s because they’re one of the most crucial elements to your profile’s success.

This may be review for some of you, but it never hurts to review the basics. A Basic Head Shot for Your Main Profile Picture is the first pic you should think about putting up.

This is the hardest ones for guys to get, because we assume that this one is going to make or break our whole profile…but it’s not.

Women don’t care so much about a guy’s looks, and aren’t as quick to 86 a guy because he doesn’t look like Brad Pitt. While she is going to screen you based on your pictures, what she’s doing is making sure that you are well groomed, and at a minimum don’t look like a psycho. It’s guys that are hung up on looks, not women. There was some great research done by one of the most popular internet dating sites to find out what main profile pictures generated the most responses. The results might actually surprise you, they did me. The best picture, in terms of new contacts made, was a picture in which the guy is looking away from the camera and not smiling.

I didn’t believe it, but being willing to try anything, I gave it a shot. The difference in the response was amazing. On match.com where I used to get an email about every 2 days, I started getting one or two every single day. The only change I made was to make my main picture one where I wasn’t looking into the camera.

Here’s the one I used: This is the best picture we’ve ever used as a main profile pic. It has completely changed the responses we get from women. ASAP, take a picture of yourself, or have someone snap one, where you’re not looking at the camera, and don’t smile.

What you’re shooting for is a mysterious look. Make sure not to smile, and for goodness sakes, don’t try to look sexy.

Looking like you’re flirting with someone off camera was by far the least appealing picture we tested. Be careful if you go with the mysterious look, sometimes what we think looks mysterious comes off as weird or creepy.

Show the picture to a female friend before putting it up to make sure you don’t look like a creeper. Or, if you’re a **coaching plan member, email it to me and I’ll give you my opinion. One important thing to remember is that if you go with a picture where you aren’t smiling as your main one, I recommend adding at least one other photo where you’re smiling and having a good time. Smiling and looking into the camera.

This was the second most effective picture tested, both in my research and that of the major sites.

But there’s a catch: If you’re going to smile, it has to be a real smile. Or at least look like one. One of the major keys to making your smile appear genuine is to be sure your eyes are smiling too. Here’s a technique you can use to make yourself smile on cue: stand in front of a mirror and think of something that makes you happy.

When you are satisfied with the way your face looks, freeze it right there. Look at it in the mirror. Feel your face. And yes, I know, that sounds weird but it will help…

Take note of what muscles you’re using; feel the pull of your cheeks; remember the way your eyebrows feel, and the tension in your ears and scalp. You want to memorize exactly the way your face feels when you look truly happy. Then, when you want to project a real smile for your picture, all you have to do is think of your happy memory and make your face feel the way you memorized it.

If you’re going for a mysterious look in your picture, do the same thing. You can use the same technique to “fake” a ton of different emotions and have them in your arsenal any time you need them.

Once you master it, you can project any emotion you want to, regardless of whether you are actually feeling it. If you know the reaction someone is looking for ina given situation, you can produce it on cue. Actually, you can do this with a bunch of different emotions and “fake” any emotion, anytime you want to.

So there it is…two of the best options for you to choose for your main profile picture. If you’re not using one of these right now on your profile, you need to immediately. For more info, and to rehash some of the basics, check out my other posts on profile pictures. All this, and more, is covered in my book Magnetic Profiles, which walks you through (with cut and paste examples) how to create an effective profile that gets women to contact you first. And, as always, contact me if you have questions!