If you though that dates came easy with online dating, you’re probably here because you realized that’s not the case. Here’s an even bigger spoiler. Regardless of how attractive or well put together your life is, it’s still not that easy to get dates through online dating. But, that’s not because the process doesn’t work! The reason most people (both men and women) struggle to get quality dates from online dating is they’re making a few mistakes that are hurting their chances of finding what they’re looking for.

In this guide, we’re going to look at four key areas of your online dating strategy where you need to make some improvements. The great news is that nothing on this list is going to be hard and they are all tweaks and adjustments you can start making today. So, if you’re ready to start getting more online dating dates (and not just more messages), then let’s get to it.

Make Sure You’re Dating with a Quality Online Dating Site

The number one mistake that a lot of people make that causes them to get fewer dates from online dating is not being with a quality online dating site. What do we mean by quality? We mean sites with proven track records and members who are actually serious about meeting offline (and for more than just getting jiggy with it).

There are two ways that dating sites go about getting quality members who are serious about going on dates. By looking at these two things, we can find out where we should be looking. First, it’s their marketing. If they are trying to target serious daters who actually want to go on dates, then you’re going to find more people willing to get out from behind the computer and meet you in person.

Second, as much as people aren’t fans of hearing it, sites that require you to pay a small monthly fee produce wildly better results. Why? Well, anyone who is flaky or not serious about going on dates doesn’t want to fork over the money. Also, once people have some skin in the game, they are much more likely to try and get something out of it. If you’re still on the fence here, we recommend you check out our Free vs. Paid Dating Sites guide.

That all being said, we wanted to give you a few great places to start if you’re brand new to this or looking to get serious about going on some dates. Here are a few of our favorite online dating sites that continually produce great results and real dates. The links we’ve provided also will automatically give you a free trial to check things out, so you don’t have to join unless you’re confident it’s a good fit for you.

Start by Getting More Responses

Now that you’re on a quality dating site, it’s time to start getting more dates. You have to follow a process, though. You can’t just wave a magic wand and magically have more dates. The process starts by getting more responses to your messages or getting more members to send you messages first. If you’re a salesperson, you can consider these like your leads. In order to get more dates, you have to have more leads.

So, how do you go about getting more responses? Well, there are several steps to the process.

1. Improve your online dating profile.
2. Have great online photos.
3. Send a quality first message.
4. Play the numbers game.

By taking care of these four things, you can ensure that you’re going to get a lot more responses to your messages. Now, we would be a pretty terrible guide if we just told you to do those four things and didn’t tell you exactly step by step how to do it. Good news, we’re not going to do that to you. If you check out our dedicated guide on getting more online dating responses, we break down all four of these steps in great detail with real things you can do right now to improve your results.

Transition Like a Champion

A lot of you might be getting conversations started, but you’re getting stuck on figuring out how to take things from an online conversation to an actual date. This can be challenging if you’re new to it, but it’s the meat and potatoes key to getting more online dates. You see, too often people get great conversations started with great leads and then the next thing they know it’s two months later, and they’ve yet to go on an actual date with that person.

What you need to do is learn how to transition properly, and we’re here to help. In our guide conveniently titled How to Transition to Actually Go On a Date From a Dating Site (perfect, we know), we walk you through this entire process. We’ll show you how to know when the time is right to ask, how to make the transition with some actual examples of what to say, and then what to do if they are hesitant about meeting up.

When you get done with that guide, you’re going to be an expert at transitioning from online to real life. It’s surprisingly not that hard once you know what to say and when to say it. Our examples give you a perfect formula of exactly what you need to say. You can even use them word for word if you want to!

Improve You

The last thing we want to talk about in regards to how to get more online dates is you. Everything we’ve talked about so far is about improving your chances based on the current state you are in. But, if we’re being honest, we all have areas of our lives that we can improve upon that will make us more appealing to those that we’re romantically interested in.

Now, to be clear, we are not saying there is anything wrong with you at all. You are most likely an incredible person who just needed a little direction on how to get other awesome people to want to meet you in person. But, there are some things that we can all work on to improve our chances of getting dates both in person and online. The best part about all of this is that these improvements don’t just help you in your dating life, but they will improve the quality of your overall life across the board.

Improve Your Confidence

The first area that you should look to work on is improving your confidence. A lot of you might not be asking for dates because you think that the person is going to say no. Or you might be approaching the situation so timidly that you are turning them off in the process. People want to see confidence. They don’t want cockiness, but they do want to see confidence.

When you ask someone to go out on a date with you, you need to ask them confidently. This all starts with loving yourself (which is another topic for another day). But, the point here is that you need to find a way to be proud of who you are and when it comes to asking someone out, you should be proud to get to show yourself off to them (again, in a non-cocky way).

Confident people get more dates. Period.

Improve your Health and Fitness

One of the best ways to get feeling better about yourself and gain more confidence is improving your health and fitness. Additionally, people are attracted to people who take care of themselves, and that is usually most evident in their health and fitness. If you can’t show a commitment to take care of yourself, how is someone else supposed to trust that you’re able to commit to caring about them or taking care of them?

We’re not saying that you need to be a fitness nut or an Instagram model selling protein. All we are saying is that it needs to be clear that you love and care about yourself. Hitting the gym a few times a week and eating healthy will do wonders for this and that will also do wonders for the rest of your life.

If you’ve never worked out before, that’s okay. We wanted to include a guide to help you on that first trip to the gym. Check out our Surviving Your First Trip to the Gym guide now, and you’ll be extremely happy with what it helps to start for you. It doesn’t take a lot of work, but it does take some work, and it takes getting started.

Improve What You Have to Offer

The last thing we want to talk about that ties right in with improving your confidence and will help you to get more dates is improving what you have to offer. People like to date interesting people that have things going for them. If you don’t believe us, ask yourself if you would rather date someone boring or someone interesting.

But what happens if you’re not interesting? Well, change it! There are so many ways that you can go about improving who you are as a person and what you have to offer. This kind of stuff will go a long way in helping you to get more dates.

For example, maybe you can start volunteering somewhere once a week or once a month? You’ve now got something interesting that you do (that is also awesome) that you can put on your dating profile or share with a potential date. Or, maybe you can take up a new hobby or learn about a new topic? Everyone loves people who are intelligent about different things. Or, maybe you can start learning a new language? There are awesome free programs online like Duolingo where you can do that for free from home or on your phone.

The point is that if you take just a few minutes a day, a week, or even just a month and focus on improving yourself, it’s going to show and translate into getting more dates.